CSR and The Evening Standard

I read this article this morning, which is about The Evening Standard's apology to Londoners for 'not listening, losing touch, being negative' and so on. I then looked it up on the UK Google, and found a Guardian blog post from May discussing it. Either Politiken is really slow, or Guardian was a bit ahead of the game. I don't know, and I'm not that bothered, as this post isn't really about that. Well, sort of.

The Danish article goes on to discuss how the financial crisis has affected newspapers, as well as how the influx of free morning newspapers such as The Metro, London Lite, etc, have had an extremely negative effect on newspaper sales.

I wonder if newspapers such as The Evening Standard should begin to use CSR in their marketing. You often see posters on the tube asking you to take home your newspapers, as since the rise of free newspapers, the amount of left papers on the tube has shot up. I don't have any figures for this, but having lived in London pre and post free papers, I can assure you this is true. Sure, Metro have tried to encourage recycling, but it's hard to get busy Londoners, caught up in the chaotic tumble that is rush hour, to break out of the surge towards the exit, find a recycling bin, and deposit their newspaper.

My thought is that The Evening Standard, for example, should use it's CSR initiatives in its marketing, showing what happens to the 50p you part with. Alexander Lebedev, who owns the paper, is apparently know for his charity and cultural support, sponsoring projects such as the Monument Sorrow in London by sculptor Andrey Scherbakov commemorating Soviet soldiers who died during World War II, the Children Center for Hematology and Transplantology, and the Burdenko military Hospital, among others. Using these examples, and perhaps the fact that by charging for the paper helps prevent quite so much littering, might encourage Londoners to cough up for a paper which not only contains more, but will also donate money to various CSR initiatives (and, not to mention, isn't supporting Associated Newspapers, who own the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, London Lite, and Metro).

Anyhow, not a greatly detailed or referenced post, but just a thought.