The CSR, a new challenge for companies?
Even if the aim for companies is to make profit, their choices on the financial, social and environmental aspect are crucial and all of them want to maintain a good image through corporate social responsibility (CSR).
CSR is the integration of the sustainable development concept into the business world. This responsibility can be defined as the voluntary interaction between financial, social and environmental performances by the firm in order to take into account the future generation’s preservation.
The financial aspect
The company is going to make socially responsible investment. This concept is developing thanks to international organisms (such as the United Nations, the World Bank) laying down policies, charters, regulations that every signatory will have to follow.
The company makes the commitment to not buy bonds from shipping industries but, on the contrary, is going to imply itself in the defense of a certain cause.
For instance, Coca-Cola decided one month ago to change its can’s color turning them into white to let appear polar bear’s shadows. In so doing, Coca-Cola decided to make the consumer aware of the disappearance of this endangered specie and promised to give funds to the Artic Home campaign.
The social aspect
According to a study carried out by the European Commission, the European consumers are especially worried about the health, the labor conditions and the human rights of employees. From then, labels have been implemented to insure the consumer the firm promised to take into account every social aspect: the Social Accountability Standard.
Some controls are led to make sure the firms really follow these regulations.
Thus, in its 2011 study, China Labor Watch highlighted that factories producing electrical in China, such as Dell, IBM, Microsoft, Apple employed workers in conditions qualified as “inhuman”.
As a consequence, these firms had to sign charters and be accountable towards Greenpeace in order to prove their efforts towards this social aspect.
The environmental aspect
Firms make the commitment to take measures which are not against the sustainable development. Criteria like the rejection of carbon dioxide emission in the air, in the water, the soils contamination, the recycling of waste and the use of raw materials and natural resources are taken into consideration to measure the firm’s impact on the environment.
For example, the eco-friendly association Greenpeace accused textile industries to pollute rivers dumping chemicals. Henceforth, the companies had to implement measures to hit back this phenomenon and try to recover its corporate image with the consumers.
To conclude, the corporate social responsibility is an important challenge for each firm to deal with because all these aspects we have seen can determine the consumer behaviour and, consequently, the future of the company.
However, the consumer has to be aware of the double language, spoken by the companies. Some firms claim to respect some norms but, their reality is quite different. Mac Donald is an example of this paradox: whereas this company always emphasizes its economical, social and environmental engagement, it has been criticized in 2005 for non-ethical affairs (bad treatment towards employees and improper publicity among other things).
Fair consumption, sustainable development, business message and reality; what a brain teaser for the consumer!
Anne RIPOLL
I found your article very interesting, as CSR is a topical subject. However, I think we should stress on the fact that if, at first sight, it seems to be done on the companies' initiative, this is not always true. From my point of view, and from what I know about the subject, I think CSR may be in a certain way considered as a result of the efficiency of international organisms, such as NGOs. As we saw in class with Greenpeace and its “Detox!” campaign, in a world where firms only care about profits, where most developed countries talk about nothing but austerity, where capitalism is stronger than ever, these organisms succeed in making the most powerful firms change their behaviour. I have to say, I find it very reassuring, to know that somebody or something still has influence in a positive way. At a time when asking the people of a country whether they want to be out of the UE or not is not only shocking but also unbearable for almost every politician of our continent, I simply regret that we,the people, don't have such influence on our states.
ReplyDeleteSarah Fragoso
It’s true that the NGOs’ influence on firms to force them to adopt some norms is unavoidable and very important.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the CSR is a voluntary process from the firm in order to improve its corporate image. In fact, there are some national regulations such as the Social Accountability Standard 8000 for the social aspect (about labour conditions, child labour); ISO 14001 for the environmental aspect (gazes emission, soil pollution,…).
Thus, in France, the AFNOR (Agence Française de Normalisation) edits the French norms in relation with quality, social and environment. As a consequence, the stakeholders of foreign companies will make pressure on the corporate governance in order to be certified.
So, both NGOs as well as the Governments and the stakeholders take their responsibilities to encourage firms to respect the CSR process.
Anne R.