Business Report: CSR Activities and Sustainable Development Goals

This business report investigates the significance of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and its alignment with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly within the Australian context. It begins with an executive summary highlighting the importance of CSR in the modern business environment. The report then delves into a detailed discussion of CSR, including the development of CSR plans, guidelines for framing CSR policies, and the causes that drive the adoption of CSR initiatives. It also explores the significance of CSR and sustainability reporting, providing examples of successful CSR activities and the consequences of failing to meet SDG targets. The report concludes with recommendations for integrating CSR into business strategies, emphasizing the importance of ethical practices and sustainability for long-term success. The report incorporates various sources, including academic research and industry reports, to support its findings and recommendations. The report is designed to inform a professional audience (CEO, COO and other managers and supervisors) about CSR and SDGs.

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Executive summary
Corporate social responsibility is gaining importance in today’s business environment, and the
concept is gaining importance in Australia like other countries. The project aims at developing a
CSR plan and to evaluate how it can help to achieve the social development goal. The project
studies the causes of developing the CSR and researches on the consequences that a company
can face by not following the minimum CSR activity.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Discussion........................................................................................................................................3
1. CSR and Sustainable development goal...............................................................................3
2. Guidelines for framing CSR policies....................................................................................3
3. Causes of introducing CSR which led to the development of SDR.....................................4
4. Significance of CSR and sustainability reporting.................................................................5
5. Example of a successful company with its CSR activity.....................................................5
Consequences on failing to meet SDG........................................................................................6
Conclusion and recommendation....................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
The corporate social responsibility is a type of business model that can help an
organization to account the social needs, and welfare objectives align with the organizational
goal. The companies are becoming conscious that how they can perform the business activities in
such a way that it will be beneficial for the economic as well as environmental development. The
Australian business environment has assessed the issues regarding the environment like gender
equality, health and welfare of people, innovation and industrial development. Companies
develop CSR activities and do sustainable reporting through sustainable development goals.
Discussion
1. CSR and Sustainable development goal
Corporate social responsibility is a broad concept and its variation and definition vary
company to company that how they approach to account the social responsibility. CSR is a broad
concept and it tells about how a company will perform its business activities adopting legal and
ethical principles. The social contribution of a company can influence positively the global
community (Zanten and Tulder 2018).
2. Guidelines for framing CSR policies
The company should always keep some facts while designing the CSR policies for the
company, which are stated below:
a. Develop a plan which can improve the identity of the company and can contribute to its
uniqueness. The CSR plan should be such unique that can target the internal employees as
well as the external interested parties. The policies should be designed in such a way that it
will not hamper the health and well-being of the existing employees.

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b. The guidelines concerning the CSR activity which the company is going to evaluate must be
studied with respect to different countries in which the company is doing business. For
example- if the CSR activity is aligned at reducing carbon footprint or environmental
pollution, increasing gender equality or generating employment opportunities, then the
company must perform the business activities aligning with the related policies for the
particular social activity.
c. CSR activities must be designed in such a way that each member of the organization can
accept the policies and the activities related to the social developmental responsibility.
d. The guidelines relating to sustainable reporting and CSR reporting should be properly
maintained while preparing the financial statements (Koo 2016).
3. Causes of introducing CSR which led to the development of SDR
 The companies which have adopted CSR activities have enough reasons for doing so.
Some companies want to create a social impact by reducing the health and safety risk and
increasing the social value so that the company gets the opportunity to sustain in the
market for long.
 Secondly, when companies start focusing on both the internal and external environment
in which it operates, the level of research and development it does improves (Nurbaiti
and Bambang 2017).
 Thirdly, adopting CSR activities, companies try to strengthen their market position and
also develops a strong relationship with its employees, customers and government too.
The triple bottom line helps a company to look all the three major factors before
developing a CSR plan which is financial (profit), environmental (planet) and social (people)
factors (Salehi, Torres and Angel 2019).

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4. Significance of CSR and sustainability reporting
Corporate social reporting is about how a company reports its CSR and SDR activities in the
financial reports. The reporting standards mandate a company for disclosing certain facts and
follow the sustainable reporting framework in financial reports. In 2007, Australia introduced a
triple line reporting way concerning GRI. The GRI framework is the global reporting index
reporting framework. The framework designs standards as per which companies can report their
CSR and SDR activities. The different levels are designed such as level A, level B and level C.
companies who follow level A have to comply with core indicators, companies falling under
level B has to follow 20 indicators and show how they are complying with all the indicators, and
level C has to follow only ten indicators (Boiral and Saizarbitoria 2017). GRI became the most
successful reporting framework in the field of sustainable reporting in Australia (Kolk 2016).
5. Example of a successful company with its CSR activity
Quality Education is one of the important social responsibility that every organisation is
focusing and adopting as its social responsibility goal. One of the Law Firm named as DLA
PIPER collaborated with the Smith Family to give quality education concerning law profession
to the girls belonging from local groups of the society. The popular business law firm joined
hands with a British school of china to conduct teacher training programmes for the teachers of
rural areas. This helped in promoting equlity in education in different areas of the country. It was
understood by the Chinese government that illiteracy is the main cause of poverty of the country.
Therefore it took this initiative at the same hand, DLA achieved recognition among people for its
contribution towards the society (dlapiper 2012). In the year 2019, DLA Piper partnered with the
UNICEF and prepares a report on the children rights. The report says that Australia has failed to
recognize the rights of children and it needs an urgent action from the country’s side. The

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company is also enged in advising other companies in recognizing CSR activity and the social
development goal aligned with their organizational goal. The popular approaches in attaing the
quality education as an CSR activities are taking of steps for promotion of education,
employment generating skills and training, vocational skills among youngsters and imparting
basic education among children (dlapiper 2012).
The above diagram shows that a company when participate in CSR activity, it increase its
employees engagement and customer loylty. The cycle shows that the company can increase the
funding of projects for making it socially responsible but at the end, the company will be
benefitted by this because through CSR, it increases its reputation in the society. The object of
SDG may differ but the application remains same that is participation of employees and
customer increase involvement for the social cause (Stocki and Łapot 2015).
Consequences on failing to meet SDG
In the year 2010, Australia developed a new ethical disclosure requirement under the
Financial Service Reform Act (FSRA). The companies have to disclose that up to what extent

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they are contributing to social issues like the extent of following labour standard and other
social-environmental contribution. Every sustainable reporting company which follows CSR
appoint directors with the board approval who will be held accountable for looking after the
CSR’s corporate governance (Nilsson et al. 2016).
The companies which are not socially responsible fail to create a social impact, and thus
customer’s perception and views regarding the company worsened. The customers generally
compare the products, and if they feel that purchasing a product will contribute to the
environment then they will definitely purchase that good in comparision to ones which do not
contribute. The share prices of the company will be lower than socially contributing companies
(Helsing 2018).
Conclusion and recommendation
The companies should not forget that CSR activities should be conducted in such a way
that it will generate equitable profits for the shareholders also and keep the social responsibility
aligned with the main objective of the business. The sustainability of the business is important
for the economy and the social objective of the planet. Therefore there should be adherence to
the triple line bottom approach.
The governments of some countries have developed strict regulations concerning the
CSR activities and it has been made compulsory but the country like Australia is still left to
develop the rules and regulation for CSR and SDG. The companies are following the sustainable
reporting by their choice but the companies who are yet to contribute should be brought to the
picture by amending the policies.

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The directors should constantly review the ongoing activities concerning the social
responsibility goal. If there is any conflict of interest between the CSR goal and the companies
goal, it should be directly reported in the board meeting. The buying and selling on the CSR
shares should be in accordance with the CSR's Share Trading Policy and ASX listing rules in
Australia.

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References
www.dlapiper.com,file:///C:/Users/LAPTOP~1/AppData/Local/Temp/
DLA_Piper_Corporate_Responsibility_Overview_2012.pdf
Billy, I., Ford, W., Mon'gare, E., Kisato, J. and Williams, S.G., 2016. Exploring Corporate Social
Responsibility with global community. The Business & Management Review, 8(1), p.86.
Boiral, O. and Heras-Saizarbitoria, I., 2017. Best practices for corporate commitment to
biodiversity: An organizing framework from GRI reports. Environmental Science & Policy, 77,
pp.77-85.
Corporate.ford.com. (2020) Available at: https://corporate.ford.com/microsites/sustainability-
report-2018-19/assets/files/sr18-summary.pdf (Accessed: 2 March 2020).
Fazli-Salehi, R., Torres, I.M. and Angel Zúñiga, M., 2019. Customer, Corporation, and Cause: A
Comprehensive Model of Cause Selection in Cause-Related Marketing. Journal of Relationship
Marketing, 18(3), pp.173-195.
Helsing, D., 2018. The Road to Meaningful Engagement with the Sustainable Development
Goals: The State of Integration of the Sustainable Development Goals in Large Swedish
Companies. IIIEE Master Thesis.
Kolk, A., 2016. The social responsibility of international business: From ethics and the
environment to CSR and sustainable development. Journal of World Business, 51(1), pp.23-34.

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Koo, Y., 2016. Developing a Framework for Supporting the Delivery of Corporate Social
Responsibility (CSR) through Design in Product-and Service-oriented Industries. Archives of
Design Research, 29(1), pp.31-45.
Nilsson, M., Griggs, D., Visbeck, M., Ringler, C. and McCollum, D., 2017. A framework for
understanding sustainable development goal interactions. A Guide to SDG Interactions: From
Science to Implementation; International Council for Science: Paris, France.
Nurbaiti, S.R. and Bambang, A.N., 2017. Faktor-faktor yang Mempengaruhi Partisipasi
Masyarakat dalam Pelaksanaan Program Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). In dalam
Proceeding Biology Education Conference (Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 224-228).
Stocki, R. and Łapot, A., 2015. Vroom’s Participation Model as a Foundation of Organisation
Audit: A New Approach to CSR. In New Perspectives on Corporate Social Responsibility (pp.
191-212). Springer Gabler, Wiesbaden.
Van Zanten, J.A. and Van Tulder, R., 2018. Multinational enterprises and the Sustainable
Development Goals: An institutional approach to corporate engagement. Journal of
International Business Policy, 1(3-4), pp.208-233.

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