Interview with Bruno Roque Cignacco
Businesses that genuinely support communities often strengthen resilience, trust, and long-term value far beyond traditional corporate responsibility.
Corporate responsibility is often discussed through environmental targets or philanthropy, but the deeper question is how businesses understand their relationship with the communities that sustain them. In this interview, Bruno Roque Cignacco explains why companies that take a compassionate view of business do more than comply with social expectations. They recognise that communities shape demand, provide talent, support infrastructure, and influence long-term legitimacy. Drawing on ideas from his book The Art of Compassionate Business, he argues that organisations achieve stronger long-term outcomes when they deliberately design business decisions to maximise human and community impact.
In the last edition of your book, “The Art of Compassionate Business”, you observed that companies have a wide range of duties. Could you explain this idea more thoroughly?
Various specialists observed that companies have different duties: economic (e.g., generating profits, increasing sales), legal (compliance with legal requirements), and social and environmental (making a positive impact on all their stakeholders, including community members, and the environment). Companies need to understand that their communities are paramount for the success of their business activities. In simple terms, if there is no community, companies cannot do business. People who buy the companies’ products and services live in communities. Employees hired by companies come from the communities. Companies regularly use the infrastructure in the communities (roads, etc.) to conduct their business activities.
Compassionate organisations clearly comprehend that all the revenues and profits come directly or indirectly from their communities. It is difficult for any company to succeed if its community does not meet its fundamental needs. These companies understand that they are interdependent with all their stakeholders, including the members of their communities. Therefore, compassionate companies adopt a supportive, respectful, and benevolent attitude toward their communities. Moreover, these organisations regularly undertake business endeavours that positively impact communities.
Compassionate organisations clearly comprehend that all the revenues and profits come directly or indirectly from their communities. It is difficult for any company to succeed if its community does not meet its fundamental needs.
This is closely related to the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR); companies that undertake CSR projects (e.g., volunteering, fundraising events, and donations to charities) positively affect community members. Nonetheless, compassionate companies go one step further. In that sense, these organisations ensure that all their business projects take into account community members, by avoiding potentially negative effects on them (e.g., eliminating polluting manufacturing processes) or by deliberately benefiting them (e.g., setting up foundations to assist certain community groups).
In potentially complex projects (e.g., setting up a new factory near a community in a natural environment), compassionate companies consult with community members to hear their views on these projects (e.g., potential negative environmental impacts) before allocating any resources or making any other significant business decision. In the business environment, some companies assist communities solely to improve their own reputations. Instead, compassionate organisations take a sustainable view of business, aiming to leave a better world for current and future generations purposefully, and this includes supporting community members wholeheartedly.
What type of activities related to communities do compassionate companies undertake? Could you please provide us with a few examples from your new book?
In my book, I included various examples of organisations that are oriented to communities. There is a wide range of projects that companies can undertake that can positively impact communities, as follows:
- Development of environmentally friendly projects (e.g., use of green manufacturing processes and renewable sources of energy).
- Conducting socially oriented endeavours (e.g., foundations, fundraising events, sponsoring community local events, etc.).
- Implementing compassionate policies that directly or indirectly support community members (e.g., hiring local people, implementing inclusion and diversity policies, developing volunteering projects, paying fair salaries to all staff members, etc.).
- Supporting cultural aspects of a community (customs, traditions, etc.), for example, adapting products and services offered to customers to cater to the unique tastes and preferences of the community members.
- Developing partnerships with community organisations, associations, and local government agencies to jointly lead socially oriented local projects that support community groups.
- Obtaining some certifications, such as B-Corp Certification, which validates that a company achieves high standards regarding social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency.
- Purposefully helping communities affected by natural disasters (e.g., tornadoes, floods, etc.) or other catastrophic events by providing them with volunteers and other resources.
- Fully complying with all relevant regulations (e.g., quality regulations, work legislation, etc.) to positively impact communities directly or indirectly.
- Prompting their suppliers and other intermediaries to support community members directly or indirectly, for example, for instance, through ethical sourcing that implies obtaining inputs in a responsible, ethical, and sustainable manner.
- Informing all their stakeholders of the concrete support provided to communities, for instance, through non-financial reports that include the main socially oriented projects by these organisations and their positive impact.
Thanks for your valuable insights. Is there anything else you want to add from your new book about community-oriented activities?
By purposefully supporting community members, compassionate companies often become positive models for other companies across sectors to emulate. In addition, community-oriented organisations tend to foster higher motivation at work, attract more talented people, and build an outstanding reputation, making them more attractive to high-quality investors and conscious customers. In addition, these companies tend to be portrayed by the media in a positive light, which benefits their public image. Some self-reflection questions to consider to become more community-oriented are:
- Are all our current business projects bringing about a positive impact (or avoiding a negative impact) on communities?
- How can we increase our positive impact on community members?
- What socially oriented projects can be undertaken during this year?
- What type of certification can be obtained that has a positive impact on communities?
