Molson in the Community

Molson is proud to advise that we are now on the All Top on line magazine rack. You will find Molson under the Blog Council companies as well as under BEER…imagine that !  We continue to keep telling our stories about Molson in the Community, whether that’s about our employees volunteering, charitable partnerships, not for profit associations, sponsorships or just great storie about our brands and people connecting with people in the greater community. And…we’d love to hear from you about what you’d like to hear about from Molson. Cheers !

A delegation of Molson folks lead by our Chief Legal and Public Affairs Officer - Scott Ewart - attended the Queen’s University School of Business  Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility seminars and workshops this past weekend in Kingston.  Joining Scott were myself, Ferg Devins VP Gov’t and Public Affairs and Tonia Hammer, Community Relations Coordinator. Mary Donohue, philanthropy consultant to Molson also played an active role in the weekend event.

Frankly the weekend was uplifting. It was refreshing to engage in dialogue with these young future leaders in conversation about the impact and influence of corporate social responsibility. Many of the students were quite in awe of the work that so many corporations are carrying out in this area. For many it was their first exposure to the intiatives that many corporations now conduct as part of the onging business models of their day to day business practice.

On Saturday morning eight different external constituents of business, education and consulting lead round table discussions related to Corporate Social Responsibility.

Included amongst the discussion leaders were Molson, Proctor and Gamble, George Brown College, Accenture, Orenda, Mountain Equipment Co-op and Concerned Children’s Advertisers.

A special highlight for the Molson team was a special award of distinction presented to Scott Ewart for his leadership and tenacity in ensuring the that National Mentoring Program got underway a year ago. Peggy Cunningham spoke about her initial fear of the project and yet a year later, her pride in what has been accomplished in engaging young leaders with corporate mentors at Molson and the difference that this had made in challenges faced by non profits and the charitable sector.

Mary Donohue in a side conversation was proud to acknowledge the success of the National Mentoring Program in year one and that she and Scott are looking at how the model can be expanded to include more universities, engage more business and take the initiative to a national level. More to come there no doubt.

Hats off to Peggy Cunningham, staff and faculty at the Queen’s School of Business and to Mandy Daniel for making sure every detail was buttoned down.

What do YOU have to say about corporate social responsibility ? Love to  hear your thoughts and comments right here on our Molson Community Blog.

A team of Molson folks will be travelling to Queen’s University this weekend to partake in the Queen’s School of Business CSR Certification “CSR weekend”. Travelling to Queen’s to participate in a dialogue with business students will be Chief Legal and Public Affairs Officer - Scott Ewart, Vice President fo Government and Public Affairs - Ferg Devins, and Community Relations Co-ordinator - Tonia Hammer. Mary Donohue, a consultant working with Molson in Philanthropic endeavours will also be accompanying the group and participating in this unque learning event at Queen’s. This is the second  year that Molson will participate in the CSR weekend at Queen’s. Last year we announced the creation of the National Mentoring Program whereby students get teamed up with a Molson employee as a mentorin to tackle a particular challenge facing a non profit organization. The Molson mentor and student look at various perspectives and opportunities to resolve the non profit’s challenge and then Molson supports the student in a summer job position with the charity to resolve the issue. Look forward to seeing everyone in Kingston. If anyone has any ideas about enhancing CSR initiatives or other ideas that you would like us to consider, please comment below. Here’s to responsible choices !

Prior to the Business Council of British Columbia CSR Summit the past week a pre-summit panel was conducted on Thursday October 16th. The panel consisted of Vicki Gabereau moderating with participation by Dr. Mary Lynn Young, Director of the School of Journalism at the University of British Columbia and Scott Ewart, Chief Legal and Public Affairs Officer for Molson in Canada.

It was an interesting dialogue that challenged the varying impacts of social media and traditional media for corporations in the business world. A core theme was a question about the impact of “citizen journalists” vs the more traditional media coverage of events and corporate news.

Scott spoke about the approach that Molson has taken on our community blog and the fact that Molson is committed to listening to our consumers, and for that matter, all stakeholders that may have an impact on Molson business in the market place. I must admit that it is also really great for us at Molson to have  Chief Legal and Public Affairs Officer that “gets it” when it comes to our need to be in the conversations that are taking place out there. Scott repeatedly reminds us that we just need to be there because it is the right thing to do. There is also a critical need for corporations to understand that they have a social license to be mindful of and to protect as the go to market in all aspects of their business.

It was evident by conversations in the room (in my humble opinion) that there is still a real struggle for many corporations to embrace social media. I don’t think that it’s necessarily a disbelief in the validity of the medium, moreover it is still so new for people and often times major corporations need to follow established and validated  sets of benchmarks and key learnings before imbedding new practices into their business culture. At Molson we have been fortunate enough to have a culture of innovation where our team has been challenged with exploring opportunitites on line for decades. Being “in” the conversation from our standpoint is a lot better place to be than on the sidelines and outside of the conversation. Molson continues to learn by listening and through experimentation in social media and undersatnding the conversations that are taking place…whether that is on Facebook, through the millions of blogs that exist or on Twitter (MolsonFerg).  It is a very exciting time for our communications team at Molson as we continue to learn and develop our interactions and discussions through social media.

And as always…we welcome your thoughts, opinions and suggestions as to how we can ensure that we are tuly in dialogue with all the stakeholders interested in our business from the beer drinker loyalist to the regulator and special interest groups that take interest in our products. Here’s to responsible choices !

The Business Council of British Columbia (BCBC), of which Molson is a member, held it’s inaugural Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) summit in Vancouver on October 17th and the 42nd President of the United States of America shared key note speaker position with Frank Giustra on the work that these two gentleman have done via the Clinton Foundation and in particular with the Clinton-Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative in developing countries. The panel was moderated by Virginia Greene, President and CEO of BCBC.

The luncheon event was jam packed in the convention centre on the waterfront in Vancouver. President Cinton and Frank Giustra engaged in close to an hour discussion with Virginia Greene on a number of topics that highlighted the importance of Corporate Social Responsbility and the need for people and business to remain committed to making a difference, even in the face of these difficulat economic times.  Hats off to the organizors and volunteers for a wonderful event and forum for dialogue on Corporate Social Responsibility.