CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY (CSR) – “Beyond just charity and media strategy”
It is very important these days for corporates to recognize the importance of contributing to society in a meaningful way. I am writing this based on my previous experiences, initiatives, involvements towards CSR activities and the role corporates should play to bring it forward.
In a familiar term “Corporate Social Responsibility” means Interaction and understand the requirement between corporates, governments, business and the society as a whole. In the past, businesses primarily concerned themselves with the economic results of their decisions. “Today, however, businesses are about reflecting on the legal, ethical, moral and social consequences of their decisions. “Corporate social responsibility” is no longer defined by how much money a company contributes to charity, but by its overall involvement in activities that improve the quality of people’s lives. There is mounting recognition of the momentous effect the activities of the private sector have on the workforce, clientele, the society, the environment, competitors, business associates, investors, shareholders, governments and others groups.
This is not just about doing charity and utilizing the allocated budget but to create a positive and a foot print in the society where our interactions and presence in the society accepted very closely and warmly which is beyond the annual appraisal and media strategy.
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is no longer an obligation that corporations feel they need to take on, but has become central to the operations of many of the best companies today. More and more companies are improving the way they do business with passionate leadership in ready-position and a laser focus on systemic change. Indra K. Nooyi, Chairman and CEO of Pepsico, described it best, as businesses operating “under a license from society.” She explains that when an organization keeps this as a focus they achieve sustained value and financial returns.
Case Study
Many of us still remember the “Volkswagen case” which represents above all an absolute failure in terms of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Let me refresh you. The company set out to design a means to circumvent emissions control—a stratageyknown at the highest levels—with the aim of giving the company an unfair advantage over its competitors that made it the world’s number one car maker, in large part on the basis of its supposedly environmentally friendly cars; meanwhile it was poisoning the planet.
Observation
In this situation the company’s CSR department must have known what was going on. How can the head of CSR deny he knew anything about what was going on? Either that person wasn’t doing their job, or they were colluding. The conclusion can only be that for some companies CSR is just a marketing exercise.
Reinventing CSR
Corporates must reinvent CSR. The people who head these departments must be made responsible for their companies’ actions, even if that means going to jail. These people will have to be very well paid in return for assuming this responsibility, as well as having budgets that will allow them to develop systems to find out what really goes on in their companies.
Sad Truth
But the sad truth is that this conclusion applies to the vast majority of companies: CSR department is created, given an air of respectability, and runs a department the job of which is to keep the company’s image clean, despite the filth it is mired in.
Are you a Head of CSR? If yes, Please ask these simple questions to yourself?
a. Whether you have any idea what is going on in your company?
b. Whether you are complicit in activities that go directly against your supposed remit?
c. Are you head of window dressing?
d. Are you prepared to lie, to cover up, or even damage to society in return for helping your company make more profits?
e. Which is more important to you: the sustainability of your company, or that of the society?
f. Which is of greater value: the society you live in or the corporate?
Prior to execute any CSR initiatives it is necessary to understand the locality, culture, importance factor and most importantly the geographical location where corporates are planning to do the CSR initiative.
“The measure of any corporate is not what it says about itself, but what others say about it, and whether they choose to affiliate with it – as employees, as clients, as investors, as neighbors, as fellow global citizens.