Corporate Social Responsibility: A Portfolio of Good Business Ethics

This article explores the corporate social responsibility of 5 companies including Patagonia, Adobe, New Belgium Brewing, Uber, and Peerby. It discusses how these companies are adopting good business ethics and contributing towards a sustainable future. The article covers their efforts towards reducing carbon footprints, waste management, ethical sourcing of raw materials, and employee training for environmental sustainability. The subject of the article is business ethics and corporate social responsibility. No course code, course name, or college/university is mentioned.

Business Ethics
Portfolio management

Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
Patagonia..........................................................................................................................................1
Adobe...............................................................................................................................................1
New Belgium Brewing....................................................................................................................2
Uber.................................................................................................................................................2
Peerby..............................................................................................................................................3
References........................................................................................................................................4

Introduction
Corporate social responsibility is an important part of every business. Any additional step that a
business takes to become more socially responsible is its corporate social responsibility. The
business ethics adopted by every company have a huge impact on the business as well as the
positioning of the brand in the minds of the consumers. There are a list of 5 companies that have
been compiled together to form a portfolio of good corporate social responsibility.
Patagonia
Patagonia is a leading apparel brand. The company makes active wear clothes and accessories.
Patagonia ensures that their raw material is safe for the environment (Long & Fain, 2015). It is a
rubber free organization no product contains any amount of rubber. Patagonia also works hard
had reducing the carbon footprints on the world by effectively managing their waste. One of
Patagonia’s important contribution is through their plan ‘1% for the planet’. Through this
program, the company ensures that 1% of their total sales every year is spent in bettering the
planet through environment support programs (O’Rourke & Strand, 2017). Patagonia was also
the first brand to launch products in pesticide free cotton. In fact the company makes sure that all
of its raw materials are ethically sourced and highly environment friendly.
Adobe
Adobe has been one of the greenest IT companies in the world. The brand has earned immense
trust and respect among all its customers. Adobe has consistently put efforts in reducing its
carbon footprints. Adobe’s headquarters are entirely green with the most effective waste
management system in place. Adobe has initiated over 70 energy conservation projects to
improve the brand’s environmental sustainability. Over 2000 employees at Adobe’s headquarters
actively engage in recycling and composting programs (Sharma, 2017). Their efforts today have
helped in diverting 97% of site’s solid waste from landfills. Adobe’s sustainable practices extend
to the entire supply chain of the brand from inventory management, reduction of shipping
materials, scrap recycling and safe working conditions. Adobe has won numerous awards for
training effective environmental management to its employees as well. The offices are well
equipped with effective waste disposable and the best part is the employees take personal

responsibility to take good care of the environment. Adobe has a go green motto for all its
employees and consumers including ‘think green’, ‘act green’, ‘eat green’, and ‘build green ’,
‘read green and shop green. Adobe’s future plans include introducing over 2000 new projects for
environmental development and substantial reduction in the carbon footprints as well as
generated waste by the brand on a global scale.
New Belgium Brewing
New Belgium Brewing Company is a leading brewing firm with customers spread across the
globe. At present the company is working hard on reducing its carbon footprints. The company
has a goal to reduce these carbon emissions to 16kg in 2020 from 18kg in 2014 (New Belgium
Brewing Company, 2018). At present the company is diverting 99.9% of its waste and ensuring
substantial management to continue the same in the longer run (Reisdorf & Wiedinmyer, 2017).
These waste management plans continue to all their offices across the globe. They strongly
believe that cleaner water makes better beer hence they ensure best quality of their products
through the use of clean water. The brand is also working at reducing its water consumption with
a goal of reducing the water consumed for beer ration to 3.5:1 from its current 4:1. There are
team of people who keep a stern eye on the total amount of natural resources used by the brand.
Employees of New Belgium Brewing Company are also trained to reduce everyday waste and
energy consumption.
Uber
Uber is a taxi giant with its presence in over 120 countries across the globe. Uber is brand that
has changed the shape of the taxi industry. Along with adding convenience to the lives of people,
Uber is also a highly environment friendly company. It is the brand’s aim to reduce the usage of
personal cars in the world. For the same reason, Uber has launched Uber Pool services where up
to four people who are travelling to a nearby destination can pool the cab rather than taking four
different taxis (Halbheer, Gartner, Gerstner & Koenigsberg, 2017). Their attempts to reduce the
carbon footprints include ensuring that each and every car is thoroughly tested and goes through
a tough process of ensuring reduced pollution emissions. Uber has also been reducing prices of
the Uber Pool facility to encourage people to share their cabs. These efforts are largely
appreciated by many governments. On the world environment day, Uber released a green index

which depicted that the launch of uber pool has helped the capital city of India save 936000 liters
of petrol till date (Business Standard, 2017). These figures are clear evidence of the massive
change that Uber can make to the world.
Peerby
Peerby is a disruptive innovation that is leading the global markets across various industries. The
business model involves a mobile application that allows people to share or buy products from
the people around them. They work on the model that every product has a certain life cycle and
not every person uses the product through its entire cycle. Therefore in order to increase the life
cycle of the product, it is wiser to share or sell it to someone in need. The idea itself is so highly
sustainable that it has reduced the demand for new goods altogether. When people buy less
goods, then automatically the waste from those goods also decreases. This is especially true for
plastic goods. The company is trying to devise an alternative from the current consumption and
throw away culture. Currently, the brand has a billion dollar worth of products available on their
platforms (World Economic Forum, 2016). The brand has been established with an aim of
reducing tons of waste, carbon and greenhouse gas emissions. But most importantly, the brand
vastly reduces the need to consume virgin natural resources every year for producing new goods.
The company is yet small but the reason behind adding this to the portfolio was to acknowledge
the brilliance behind the idea and the business plan of the brand.

References
Business Standard, 2017, ‘World Environment Day’, Retrieved from http://www.business-
standard.com/article/current-affairs/world-environment-day-how-uber-saved-fuel-
reduced-pollution-in-delhi-117060500249_1.html.
Halbheer, D., Gärtner, D. L., Gerstner, E., & Koenigsberg, O. (2017). Optimizing service failure
and damage control. International Journal of Research in Marketing.
Long, M. M., & Fain, D. (2015). The Clothing Swap: Social, Sustainable, and Sacred.
New Belgium Brewing Company, (2018), ‘Energy’, Retrieved from
http://www.newbelgium.com/Sustainability/Environmental-Metrics.
O’Rourke, D., & Strand, R. (2017). Patagonia: Driving Sustainable Innovation by Embracing
Tensions. California Management Review, 60(1), 102-125.
Reisdorf, J., & Wiedinmyer, C. (2017). Report to the International Global Atmospheric
Chemistry Project (No. DOE-IGAC2016-SC0016041). University Corporation for
Atmospheric Research (UCAR/CPAESS), Boulder, CO (United States).
Sharma, S. K. (2017). A comparative study of corporate social responsibility in public and
private sector organizations in India.
World Economic Forum, (2016), ‘5 Environment friendly companies’, retrieved from
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/12/5-environmentally-friendly-companies-that-
are-changing-the-world/.