Business and Society: Evaluating Philanthropy as Social Responsibility

This essay, titled "Business and Society," delves into the intersection of business practices and societal challenges, specifically focusing on environmental and social issues. The essay begins by acknowledging the governments' struggles to solve these issues, leading to business organizations being...Read More

Running head: Business and Society
Business and Society

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Discussion........................................................................................................................................3
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
The essay is going to discuss the social as well as environmental issues. The title of this essay is
business and society. In recent times, the governments of many countries are unable to solve
social and environmental issues. For this, the governments are seeking help from, various
business organizations thereby intervening in the entire problem and about their solution. As
business organizations utilize social resources, it is their responsibility to give something back to
the governments. The discussion part of this essay will describe relevant theorybased on the
governmental and social issues along with appropriate academic sources and examples. The
conclusion section will provide all the key points that are depicted in the discussion part of this
essay. The main aim of this essay is to appraise benevolence as a socially liable business activity
utilizing global examples to describe in detail about the given statement(Osagieet al. 2016).

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Discussion
The essay is mainly discussed on the social and environmental issues raised in New Zealand in
recent times which the government of New Zealand is unable to solve. For this, the social and
environmental issues have been raised largely in New Zealand(McWilliams, 2015). The major
social issues faced by the peoples of New Zealand are housing (50 percent), poverty (32
percent), cost of living (26 percent), healthcare (31 percent) and crime (24 percent). The top 3
social issued noticed by the peoples of New Zealand are housing, healthcare, and poverty. On the
other hand, the environmental issues that have been raised in New Zealand are as follows:
 Animals, ecosystems, and plants are under risk.
 The variations to the vegetation on the land are affecting the water and soil.
 Urban growth is lessening native biodiversity and versatile land
 The waterways of New Zealand are polluted in agricultural areas.
 The environment in urban areas is polluted.
 A high level of greenhouse gas is emitted by the persons of New Zealand.
 The rapid change in the climate has been affecting Aotearoa New Zealandfor a long time.
The government of New Zealand has been giving its entire focus to reduce the environmental
pollution and environmental issues raised in this country especially to climate change-related
issues. The government of New Zealand has implemented a program that will help the citizens of
the country to reduce the level of greenhouse gas in the environment thereby ensuring climate-
resilient future for those citizens. The program has focused on the sustainable, climate-resilient
anda productive economy(Carroll, 2016). Moreover, the government has implemented the Zero
Carbon Bill that proposes to createan autonomousclimate change commission. Although the
government of New Zealand has been struggling to solve all the social and environmental issues
and for this, the business organizations of New Zealand have been asked to intervene because of
their usage of resources of the society.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
In order to solve the social issues, CSR plays an important role as it helps the business
organizations of New Zealand to legalize business actions thereby allowing them to do the right
thing. The social issues can impact the entire scenario of New Zealand and it is very necessary

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and for this, the implementation of corporate social responsibility is a very importantaspect to
mitigate such issues. CSR can be utilized as a tool that business organizations can commutate
with their impact on the society thereby recognizing the paths to solve these negative effectsand
receive responsibility for their actions as well as actions of others. Moreover, business
organizations of New Zealand can implement CSR to improve the entire society as a whole
thereby recognizingtheimpacts of social issues(Masoud, 2017).
In order to implement corporate social responsibility to solve the social issues raised in New
Zealand, Carroll’s Pyramid Model of Corporate Social Responsibilitycan be described. The four
major principles of CSR are economic aspects, ethical aspects, legal aspects, and Philanthropic
aspects(Schrempf-Stirling, Palazzo & Phillips, 2016). According to the economic aspects of
CSR, business organizations should maintain resilient economic interests by whichthey can
mitigate social issues. Providing value to the peoples of New Zealand who are considered as the
most important shareholder of any business organization, they become a part of being socially
responsible(Lyra, Barbosa De Souza, Verdinelli& Lana, 2017).
On the other hand, to meet the ethical aspects, the organizations can act ethically thereby going
beyond and above the legal needs and lighting the expectations of the society. Philanthropic
aspects are considered as the expectation that business organizations should provideback to
society by giving charitable donations of goods, time, and money. For example, the business
organizations of New Zealand donate their profit percentages and a vast amount of time to the
community groups every year. The business organizations can alsogive their entire focus on
caring for the entire environmental issues and animals thereby highlighting the environment-
friendly products(Wu, Shen, Ann & Zhang, 2016).
Carroll’s Pyramid Model of Corporate Social Responsibilityalso includes four principles such as
philanthropic, economic, legal and ethical responsibilities. Philanthropic responsibilities help the
owners of business organizations to be a good corporate citizen. It also assists that the
responsibility of the business organizations to donate resources to the community thereby
developing the quality of life of the peoples of New Zealand. As per the ethical responsibilities
of this theory, the owners of the business organizations should be ethical and their duty is to
avoid harm thereby obligating what is fair and right. Legal responsibilitiesassist the business

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organizationsto obey the law which is systematizationof wrong and right of the society.
Economic responsibilities state to be profitable thereby maximizing the profit of the business
organizations upon which all organizations rest(Dobbs & Van Staden, 2016).
3Rs Model for Green Wastage Management
In order to mitigate the environmental issues raised in New Zealand, the 3Rs model of green
waste management can be described which includes reuse, recycle and reduce wastes from the
environment. All three elements of this green waste management model help to reduce waste
thereby conserving landfill space, natural resources, and energy(NILIPOUR & De Silva, 2018).
Reduce
The best possible way to manage waste is to reduce the number of wastes rather than producing
it. The main environmental issues raised in New Zealand the level of pollution is increasing
rapidly in the urban area and to reduce such circumstances, the owners of the business
organizations can use this technique effectively. The peoples of New Zealand should reduce the
usage of plastic bags and avoid disposable goods like cups, napkins, lighters, razorsand paper
plates. The organizations can arrange seminarsabout telling the peoples to buy durable goods to
save versatile landfill space.
Reuse
The reuse element of this green waste management makes the environmental and economic
sense to reuse the products. The business organizations can set awareness programs for the
people of New Zealand to save plastic and paper bags and repair broken furniture, toys, and other
appliances. The business organizations, as well as the citizens of New Zealand, can utilize reseal
capable containers besides using plastic wrap. They can also utilize a ceramic coffee mug rather
than paper cups in order to reduce the emission of greenhouse gas(Unit, 2015).
Recycle
Recycle is considered as the best way to maintain wastes as it allows to reuse, restructure the
used materials to extract the remaining resources out of it. The people can buy recycled products
after identifying the symbol within it. They can also utilize such products that can be recycled

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thereby mitigating the pollution and entire ecosystems. As a result, the waterways of the
agricultural lands can be filtered and the disposal of plastic materials can be properly recycled
for reusing purposes(Crane, Matten & Spence, 2019).
Explanation for being agreed with the given statement
Neither the government of New Zealand nor other country governments are really facing
struggle to prohibit the social violations and pollution levels. Business organizations can really
control the budget system of low and middle-class families across different countries through
giving employment opportunities. People of low and middle-class are actually influencing
environment pollution from root levels that can be changed through good salary of an individual
family member. To some extent, I think the given statement is true as the business organization
can control psychological behavior of their employee’s families by developing corporate social
responsibility (CSR) and Green waste management (3Rs model) to solve the environmental as
well as social issues raised in New Zealand(Baden, 2016).

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Conclusion
Finally, it can be concluded that environmental issues have a significant impact on society and
business as social resources have been utilized while considering the inabilities of the
government to remove all the issues. The study has discussed the major aspects of CSR
regarding the following concept in order to reduce the relevant social issues raised in New
Zealand. The argument is properly justified as relevant theories such as; Carroll's Pyramid Model
of Corporate Social Responsibility, green waste management model has signified the aspects of
the given statement. Furthermore, it is noticed that the government of the nation is imitating
various initiatives to save the environment of the country.

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References
Baden, D. (2016). A reconstruction of Carroll’s pyramid of corporate social responsibility for the
21st century. International journal of corporate social responsibility, 1(1), 8.
Carroll, A. B. (2016). Carroll’s pyramid of CSR: taking another look. International journal of
corporate social responsibility, 1(1), 3.
Crane, A., Matten, D., & Spence, L. (Eds.). (2019). Corporate social responsibility: Readings
and cases in a global context. Routledge.
Dobbs, S., & Van Staden, C. (2016). Motivations for corporate social and environmental
reporting: New Zealand evidence. Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy
Journal, 7(3), 449-472.
Lyra, F. R., Barbosa De Souza, M. J., Verdinelli, M. A., & Lana, J. (2017). Corporate social
responsibility: comparing different models. Social Responsibility Journal, 13(4), 728-
742.
Masoud, N. (2017). How to win the battle of ideas in corporate social responsibility: the
International Pyramid Model of CSR. International Journal of Corporate Social
Responsibility, 2(1), 4.
McWilliams, A. (2015). Corporate social responsibility. Wiley encyclopedia of management, 1-4.
NILIPOUR, A. A., & De Silva, T. A. (2018). Attitudes of New Zealand business students
towards corporate social responsibility. New Zealand Journal of Applied Business
Research (NZJABR), 16(1).\]
Osagie, E. R., Wesselink, R., Blok, V., Lans, T., & Mulder, M. (2016). Individual competencies
for corporate social responsibility: A literature and practice perspective. Journal of
Business Ethics, 135(2), 233-252.
Schrempf-Stirling, J., Palazzo, G., & Phillips, R. A. (2016). Historic corporate social
responsibility. Academy of Management Review, 41(4), 700-719.
Unit, B. (2015). Corporate social responsibility.

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Wu, Z., Shen, L., Ann, T. W., & Zhang, X. (2016). A comparative analysis of waste
management requirements between five green building rating systems for new residential
buildings. Journal of cleaner production, 112, 895-902.

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