Blog 8 – Corporate Social responsibility

Corporate social responsibility is a concept which gives rise to how a company should conduct itself within a society, and different views on what a business is for and how it should act. Social responsibilities arise from the interdependence of organisations, society and the environment (Mullins, 2007).

As society has become more and more interested in corporate social responsibly, organisations have taken it upon themselves to try to actively promote their actions in order to gain peoples trust and as a result their custom. This is down to the main idea of globalisation. As people are becoming more aware of businesses activities through the expansion of media, and people are becoming more growingly concerned with the activities the organisations they use are performing in.

Many organisations have been caught out with regards to acting badly when looking at their corporate social responsibility. Mainly clothing chains such as GAP and Primark have been caught using sweat shops and child labour as a result of outsourcing. Outsourcing is the act of one company contracting another company to provide services that might otherwise be performed by the company itself (Bremmer, 2012).

Gaps Child Labour Scandal (TheStar, 2007) : The discovery of children as young as 10 sewing clothes for clothing retailer Gap Inc. in a New Delhi factory has renewed concerns about child labour in India.

Primark Sweat shop scandal (McDougall, 2008) : The huge fashion store Primark sacked three of its suppliers last week after an investigation for the BBC's Panorama and The Observer uncovered children labouring in Indian refugee camps to produce some of its cheapest garments. Here we reveal the brutal reality of a supply chain that sees children as young as 11 sewing T-shirts which cost shoppers just a few pounds to buy on high streets across Britain.

The John Lewis Partnership

The John Lewis partnership is a well know and well trusted brand for the community. Being respected by its employees for its great partnership programme which allows individuals to progress though the company and receive an percentage of the organisations profits annually. They therefore have good CSR focus when looking at its employees.

Each and every one of its employees has to follow their policies regarding their CSR plans and achievements, and by this it allows the organisation to feel trustworthy towards them. Their CSR plan (Lacy, 2011) is split into three main categories, for which they create targets and state achievements to do with; the environment, Customers-products-suppliers, and the community.

The environment – John Lewis have completed the targets they set themselves last year, and currently diverted 81% of their operational waste away from land fill, and have reduced their refrigeration and cooling emissions by 20%. However, with CSR its all about getting better and doing more things, so they have created more targets that they wish to achieve. This include things such as further reduce waste from landfill, develop renewable energy generation centres and continue to improve energy efficiency, and monitor and manage water consumption

This may please consumers, making them believe that John Lewis is there to help the environment; However this also benefits the organisation itself. With rising fuel prices and the cost of clearing waste, by reducing these things they will also save themselves costs.

Customers-products-suppliers- People look for good products and they want these to come from good suppliers, John Lewis cover this by using sustainable ingredients, for example all the own brand products that contain palm oil or RSPO-certified. Also, all paper and card used for packaging are made from recycled FDC-certified materials. As with the environment, more targets have been set – this time they are based around the ideas of visions- they are “the Waitrose way” and “bringing quality to life”

This cutting down of materials and recycling are also good ways to cut costs, and by using sustainable ingredients in food etc means that the organisation gets a good reputation for working with the environment, and will have more people wanting to work for them and with them to improve and fulfil their visions.

Lastly looking at the community – From 2010-2011 John Lewis have made £8.8 million contributions to the community, and have spent over 24,000 hours with volunteers in the Golden Jubilee Trust scheme.

Although no new targets have been made to be completed, John Lewis state that they want to continue focusing on the current issues they are addressing and thus to create more opportunities for their partnership to get involved in community activities.

By helping, and actively promoting helping the community for which their shops are based, this shows the community that they care, and may cause more people to take there custom there. John Lewis uses their volunteering and charity contributions to form a strong relationship with the public, and try to create a friendship.

Therefore, to conclude I think it is clear that as we going through further globalisation, the process of corporate social responsibility has become more and more of a concern for a organisations consumers. However, with the current economic climate being poor, will people shade away from the less expensive less socially responsible organisations to buy goods and use services as they are cheaper. Is corporate social responsibility a luxury people can still afford?

Bibliography

Bremmer, I. (2012) Wise Geek [online]. What is outsourcing. Available from: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-outsourcing.htm [Accessed: 23rd Jan 2012].

Lacy, G. (2011) JohnLewisParntership - A clear view. internet report archive. John Lewis.

McDougall, D. (2008) The hidden face of Primark Fashion. Online Newspaper URL:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/22/india.humanrights. Nadu, India: The observer The guardian.

Mullins, L.J. (2007) Management and organisational behaviour. 9th ed. Harlow: Prentice Hall FT.

TheStar (2007) Gap in chuld labour scandal. Online Newspaper URL:http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/271512. London: The Star The Star.