Businesses have to manage their operational responsibilities well in order to be socially acceptable and maintain their capability to operate in the market. For an international consumer-goods company like Henkel the key responsibilities are:

• Ensuring that its products are safe for consumers and the environment,
• Not harming the environment and addressing global warming,
• Ensuring responsible behavior along the supply chain,
• Treating its employees fairly, and
• Providing quality products at a fair price.

Italian consumers are paying more and more attention to environmental issues and to product safety. But only a minority is willing to pay more for environmentally friendly products at this point. However, Henkel’s citizenship responsibilities provide the potential to differentiate itself and enhance its reputation. In Italy these entail in particular:

• Ensuring the potential for continued value creation in Italy while creating development opportunities for emerging economies,
• Addressing potential human rights abuses in developing countries, and
• Contributing to solutions for social problems, such as demographic change, defense of diversity, and employment stability.

These responsibilities have to be translated into local activities. From an Italian perspective two factors appear to be particularly important:

• Involving the employees in the definition of the necessary measures and enabling them to participate in activities to solve social problems in their communities, and
• Solving problems through voluntary commitments and NGO partnerships, especially where common areas of interest can be defined.