I’ve just finished studying the recent Edelman report on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and the blogsphere. Both interesting and then not surprising at all. The blogsphere is still in its infancy when it comes to CSR. Few posts are specifically tagged with CSR terms while a lot actually covering CSR topics. That means that bloggers do not consider themselves active CSR agent. Moreover, the job of raising CSR issues and bringing new information to the table is still left to mainstream media. Bloggers mainly comment reactively on existing stories. But the report agrees with us that the imporatance of the blogsphere for CSR in general is growing. Main findings of the report:

  • CSR issues are not among the main subjects in the blogsphere. Still there was over 3.5 Million post on CSR related subjects during 2006. That’s one post on CSR related matters every 10 second or app. 0,75% of all blog posts. And the number is growing.
  • Posts specifically tagged with a CSR keyword were only 120.000 during 2006
  • Environmental issues make up 75% of CSR related posts
  • Blogs specifically tagging with CSR terms are professional blogs (like this) and typically not very influential.
  • CSR topics are still identified, researched and published by mainstream media. Bloggers only reactively comment and sometimes provide perspective.
  • NGO’s and CSR institutions are still bad at engaging bloggers by being still kept in an old school paradigm for one-way communication. Besides, the number suggests that bloggers have caught ‘activism fatigue’.
  • The major CSR influencers are individuals, not institutionalized voices. The blogshere notoriously distrust institutionalized voices.
CSR in context. Keywords on the web 2006:


Actics is all about aiding the transition to civic CSR engagement for people and companies alike. We believe they need each other. To see our perspective on these matters, check out the paper in progress ‘CSR 2.0′ under the working paper section, I’ve just uploaded a new version.