Blog 8 - Corporate Social Responsibility - (CSR)

Blog 8 - Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

Provide a definition of CSR using academic sources.

CSR is how companies manage the business processes to produce an overall positive impact on society. (Zu, 2009)

Identify an organisation from the FTSE4GOOD list or from your visit to the Eden Centre which is an excellent demonstration of CSR in practice.

The best know company in the Eden centre for excellent CRS is the body shop. ‘The Body Shop’ trades health a beauty products from face creams to bath oils and crystals. The body shop is well known for good CRS as it makes sure it develops sustainable supply chains and also engages in community based developments to benefit its workers. The body shop is so proud of its CSR policies that it has its own website dedicated to shop there good practices. One of the first CSR projects the body shop engaged in was in 1987, this was the community trade. This is when supply chains are told to purchase natural ingredients from socially and or economically marginalised sections of the world. These communities are able to provide a strong commitment to the body shop allowing sustainable development and trade of the many of the body shops products. An example of this is found in Mauritius, where 40 of all the employees at the body shop factory work despite having disabilities. As well as this the body shop developed an ethical trade program as a way of improving working conditions within their many supply chains. By improving working conditions the body shop were able to make sure none of their workers human rights were being breached. Body hop supplier all around the world are made to agree and sign up to the body shop’s code of conduct. This code of conducts is a way of ensuring that the suppliers are carrying out work while abiding by internationally recognised labour standards. This is also seen as ‘Ethical trade compliance’. These practices benefit the body shop in numerous ways. As the body shop make sure that all of its workers are protected by human rights laws and are not marginalised in any way, the body shop is able to charge more for their products when selling them to the consumers. The body shop can charge more as it can show that the extra cost on their products is not profit rather it is used to improve working conditions and help build local community projects such as schools and hospitals. When any company uses profits in this way they have a higher CSR rating and therefore more customers are likely to use their services as they know their money is being well spent and is helping others around the world who had a hand in making it. (Waterwideweb, 2012)

One of the body shops greatest CSR policies is its pre tax corporate philanthropy. Corporate philanthropy is when Major Corporation makes charitable donations to people in need. The body shop set up a foundation that it would be able to give financial support to people working at the core of their organisation. This foundation helps people who would have no chance of receiving the money by any other legal means. One of the main areas of funding that the body shop invests in is to help and fund groups working to stop the breach of people’s human rights, and groups that protect the environment and the animals found init such as the WWF – world wildlife foundation. This practice is very shroud in a business sense. This is seen by any as a way of marketing through CSR, and although from the outside the body shops intentions are good. Are they just practicing this philanthropy as a way of avoiding heavy tax bills and gaining social acceptability along the way? Wither they are or they are not this CSR in most people eyes is another positive, therefore the company benefits from this imitative as it can show the good work being done under  its foundation making their shares a greener investment to any potential investors. But more importantly any investors would be safe in the knowledge that their investments are clean and have the upmost CSR surrounding them. (Bilson, 2012)

Bibliography

Bilson, J. (2012) Corporate Social Responsibility suite 101 [online]. Corporate Social Responsibility suite 101. Available from: http://jo-bilson.suite101.com/corporate-social-responsibility-at-the-body-shop-a215660 [Accessed: 30 april 2012].

Waterwideweb (2012) Water wide web [online]. Water wide web. Available from: http://www.waterwideweb.org/the-body-shops-csr.html [Accessed: 30 april 2012].

Zu, L. (2009) Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate Restructuring and Firm's performance. In: Springer (ed.) Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate Restructuring and Firm's performance., pp.18 - 19.