The Berkeley Haas Center for Responsible Business (CRB) believes that for our work to be truly responsible, we must take an anti-racist stance in all that we do in order to create a foundation of inclusion and equity. By anti-racism we mean admitting and acknowledging where our policies and practices have been racist or upheld ideals rooted in white supremacy and instead, adopting ideals that “challenge racist policy and power” (Ibram X Kendi).
CRB Anti-Racism Acknowledgement
We acknowledge that anti-racism is not a one-time statement, it is a life-long commitment to learning, progress, action, and accountability. We are committed to continuously educating ourselves, setting actionable goals to fight systemic injustices and racism, and holding ourselves accountable in this work.
The CRB recognizes that we as a center, as a community, and as individuals have not always been leaders in this space despite past efforts. In 2017, the CRB committed to embedding social inclusion into all of our programming, research, and curricula, but we have not fully stood by that commitment. In 2020, we acknowledged this failure in a public letter of condemnation, support, and commitment to action. The below commitments, developed in 2021, aim to embed anti-racist practices in all elements of our operations.
Anti-Racism through the Berkeley Haas Defining Leadership Principles
At the CRB and Berkeley Haas, we live our distinctive culture out loud by embracing our four Defining Leadership Principles: Question the Status Quo, Confidence Without Attitude, Students Always, and Beyond Yourself. These pillars help align anti-racism work with our engrained school values and the greater UC Berkeley community.
Question the Status Quo
Question the Status Quo means integrating anti-racism into our corporate partnerships, speaker events, academic curriculum, research, and student advisory board. By challenging the conventional way that capitalism centers around profit, the CRB will lead by championing bold ideas that will structurally progress the business realm toward more inclusive and equitable processes that create a space for diversity.
Confidence Without Attitude
Confidence Without Attitude means we move humbly, working in collaboration with our community of partners, colleagues, and students in this anti-racism work to build a foundation of empathy, inclusion, and trust within the spaces that the CRB operates. This includes listening to the most marginalized voices in our communities and uplifting and amplifying the work of Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) in our events, research, and curriculum.
Students Always
As Students Always, we must actively seek out diverse perspectives as a part of our lifelong pursuit of personal and intellectual growth. We acknowledge that there is always more to learn and it is our responsibility, with the power and influence we have through the CRB, to put in the time and effort to actively keep learning and seek out feedback from the communities we work with.
Beyond Yourself
The Beyond Yourself principle means that the CRB will not center itself in this anti-racism work, but, rather, that we understand our place in leading ethical and responsible businesses practices that focus not just on environmental stewardship, but are also committed to anti-racism work. We will take the time to consider the long-term impact of our influence and actions when making decisions about the future of the CRB and the work that we do by garnering community input and feedback on our efforts. This also means we will put the collective good above our own interest. In our corporate partnerships, this may look like turning down collaborations with companies who do not commit to anti-racism as outlined in our agreements.
CRB Anti-Racism Commitments
The CRB’s commitments to anti-racism span across every area of our work. This includes our events, curriculum, research and case studies, corporate partnerships, and advisory boards. Within each category, we outline the general direction and the specific goals that we have set.
In order to advance towards becoming an anti-racist center, it is fundamental that we rethink and redesign how we operate as staff and as a center – embedding processes to ensure accountability in our progress.
Commitments:
- Annual review of CRB Anti-Racism Commitments, with public accountability updates
- Host monthly team anti-racism meetings to hold ourselves accountable to our commitments, discuss our progress, and propose additions
- Ensure all CRB staff undergo, and continue to participate in, anti-racism trainings on an annual basis
- Work with consultants who specialize in anti-racism systems change to review our organizations policies and practices
- Develop an external anti-racism statement that communicates the CRB’s commitment and ongoing action to fight racism, and becomes embedded in all CRB staff and student job descriptions, donor agreements, partnership agreements, and all other contracts
- Identify an anti-racist primer for all CRB staff, students, board members, partners, and professional faculty to read
For our events, the CRB strives to use our platform to amplify BIPOC voices who are leading the charge in responsible business, as well as creating space for all folx to voice their concerns about the current status quo of business.
Commitments:
- Investigate and develop an honorarium policy for speakers at CRB events that explicitly acts to rectify the minority tax
- Ensure at least one question at CRB events focuses on intersectional environmentalism and/or anti-racism
- When CRB staff and representatives speak at events explicitly include a lens of intersectional environmentalism and/or anti-racism
- When CRB staff are invited to speak at events, ensure that Black, Indigenous, and POC leaders have also been invited to showcase their leadership
From the flagship courses we deliver, to advising curriculum across Haas, the CRB is embedding not only responsibility, but intersectional sustainability and environmental justice in every class we work with.
Commitments:
- Curate a speaker list to share with faculty for classroom guest speakers that are predominately made up of Black, Indigenous, and POC sustainable and responsible business leaders, amplifies intersectional environmentalism
- Ensure that intersectional environmentalism and/or anti-racism is included in every CRB listed course
- Highlight cases with diverse protagonists in our faculty sustainability and responsibility case compendium
For our research and case studies, we seek to amplify the voices of BIPOC business leaders. The lack of BIPOC protagonists in case studies has deep ramifications as these are key tools used in business management education. The CRB will work to increase the representation of BIPOC protagonists in our case writing, and highlight specific injustices BIPOC communities face in the business sustainability and responsibility realms
Commitments:
- Ensure that published cases through the CRB feature non-White protagonists
- Proactively learn about the environmental and social injustices Black, Indigenous, and POC communities face within our CRB areas of focus and amplify through our written and spoken thought leadership
In our corporate partnerships, we offer companies priority access to our student talent, academic thought-leadership, and CRB advisory boards. The CRB will structure our partnership agreements to include a statement of commitment to anti-racism that will hold partner companies to the same standards as our center.
Commitments:
- Develop an external partnership philosophy that communicates the expectation that to partner with the CRB means to agree to be an anti-racist
- Craft a statement of anti-racism work that will commit corporations to diversify the representatives who sit on the CRB Senior Advisory Board
- Reenvision donor acknowledgement practices, to ensure that financial contributions do not overweight a narrow set of perspectives
In our Student and Senior Advisory Boards the CRB wants to ensure that diverse student and expert voices are always heard in promoting responsible business at Berkeley Haas. We recognize the need for intersectionality and seek to foster representation across all levels of diversity. This means the CRB must be intentional about who sits on our boards and how we can actively foster inclusion. This has the intention to create the structure that fosters increased BIPOC representation in the real-world leadership that informs our work.
Commitments:
- Reenvision our student and senior advisory boards to create an equity-focused board process
- Fostering a board makeup that reflects the population of California
- Develop advisory board terms of engagement documents to create a space and recruitment process that amplifies the messages, perspectives, and voices of Black, Indigenous, and POC sustainable and responsible business leaders
- Annual check in with our student board around anti-racism to see how we can do better, as well as formalize our commitment to inclusivity and diversity on our student board
Accountability
Without accountability, these acknowledgement and commitments mean nothing. The CRB staff, Student Advisory Board, and Senior Advisory Board will review progress on these commitments annually and update as we continue to learn how to be an anti-racist center. Additionally, we will develop metrics to measure progress through SMART* goals and will include a semesterly analysis of the current commitments.
*SMART goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound