Corporate Social Responsibility | Business Ethics

RUNNING HEAD: BUSINESS ETHICS
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Business Ethics

Business Ethics
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Introduction
Corporations across the world are struggling because of a new challenge that is meeting the
requirement of the current generation without compromising the ability to meet the
requirement of future generation. It is the responsibility of the organizations to take care of
the impact of their actions on the society and community. In order to do so the organizations
adopt various sustainability principles and integrate corporate social responsibilities with
their business model. Corporate social responsibility is considered as a strategy that helps the
companies to contribute to societal goals and development of the society and community.
Sustainability includes business activities that are voluntary and demonstrates the inclusion of
environmental and social concerns in operations of business and stakeholder’s interaction.
Sustainability and corporate responsibility is therefore a prominent feature of the business
and society literature and also includes business ethics (Bowie,2017).
To enhance and understand the concept of sustainability and corporate social responsibility,
food industry is chosen and in that different firms are analysed that revised their long and
short term goals and their respond to challenges of sustainability. CSR strategy is integrated
to whole business rather than selective areas, as CSR activities in food industry can leads to
many benefits such as risk management, competitive advantage and avoidance of cost
(Hartmann, 2011). This report consists of key challenges in relation to sustainable business
and corporate responsibility in food industry. Further, a detailed explanation is given by
analysing different firms and businesses in food industry about the best practice. At last,
recommendations are given to firms that operate in the food industry taking into account
global considerations related to sustainability and corporate responsibility.

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Challenges in corporate responsibility and sustainability
Corporate social responsibility is a broad concept and now become a matter of high
importance. There are ample of examples and evidences about the significance of
sustainability and corporate responsibility in many worldwide businesses in different
industries. Like in the automotive industry Ford and Mitsubishi, in the fashion and clothing
industry H&M and in the food industry Nestle, Unilever and Coca Cola (Aksak et.al,2016).
Food retailing organizations sell and produce food products and utilize waste and surplus.
These companies play big role in the society and contribution in the community. “Food is a
social good that society needs in everyday life” (Vitolla et.al,2016). Some of the challenges
that the companies face in the food industry related to CSR and sustainability are:
Supply Chain Problems
The CSR opportunities and threats are shifting from single firm network to supply chains as
in the food industry many problems lies from a food supply chain. It is not in hand of
companies to control all the parties that are involved in the supply chain so it is challenging
task in food retail industry to follow sustainable practices. However, organizations from their
hand trying to use resources in an efficient manner but in the food industry there are problems
related to food safety, food hygiene, retailer power abuse, and issues related to child labour
and retail chain scandals (Janseen et.al,2018).
Societal Concern
The food industry establishes a commitment to the health of its customers and society that
indicates all the food products are concerned to follow set standards. At the global level
hunger is a great issue as many people in different countries are dying because of
malnutrition. Here CSR activities by the food companies play an important role. Is challenge

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for the companies in food industry to reach and reduce the impact of their activities as except
this organizations aim is profit maximization. The food companies feel society pressure,
government pressure and pressure of different rules and regulation that make it challenging
for the firms to contribute in society through CSR activities and by following ethical business
practices (Skilton and Purdy,2017).
Commitment to the Environment Friendly
The food industry contributes about 27% of global resources, 31% of acidifying emissions,
and 18% of greenhouse emission. Due to that higher global involvement of the food industry
it is important to make food industry more efficient and accountable. It is a challenge for the
food industry to commit to eco-friendly processes for production as there are no such
processes through which the companies can produce to the larger scale. On other side,
complying to food industry standard, delivering according to requirements of consumer and
then getting enough profit margins is quite difficult situation for the firms in the food industry
(Ngwu et.al,2019).
Environmental impact
The major challenge that the industry is facing is related to degradation of the ecosystem. The
food industry highly depends on natural resources. In order to save the environment and
ensure sustainability of natural resource a single firm cannot reduce the impact, it is done
collectively. But due to many unethical practices followed by the big players in industry it
becomes difficult to make everyone accountable for their actions. Many companies
manipulate their sustainability report and show CSR activities and spending on the
environment and society. This is challenge because it is difficult to establish a feeling of
belongingness in the organization culture and operations. The firms need to understand it and
contribute to the greater extent for environment safety and protection (Moggi et.al,2018).