CSR Features for Ethical Investment Fund

This case study provides advice to Westlands on the essential features of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) for their planned ethical investment fund. It emphasizes the importance of a clear CSR definition, measurable objectives, a well-defined strategy, and continuous efforts. The study also highlights the need to evaluate other companies' CSR initiatives, engage stakeholders, and measure the impact of CSR programs. It advises Westlands to partner with experts and ensure transparency in fund utilization, ultimately aiming for positive social impact and effective governance.

Issue: The Board of Westlands is planning to start a fund related to ethical investments that will invest in
those companies that will have a strong record of the corporate social responsibility. The company is
seeking for advice to get an outline of the features of CSR so that they are aware of the things that they
should look for in the management of the company which is socially responsible.
Advice:
Westland must be clear about the definition of CSR before starting the ethical investment fund. This is
required because when they will understand the meaning of CSR, they will be able to do justice to the
fund, and they will get to know the ultimate aim of the doing CSR. In simple terms, corporate social
responsibility is a relationship that exists between the companies and the environment or society in
which it operates (Patten, 2014). The relationship aims to create mutual benefit for the company and its
stakeholders who are present in the society.
Corporate social responsibility is not only a task, it is policies that must feature clear objectives of the
company and the results that the company wishes to deliver must be measurable. This is one of the key
features of CSR which Westlands must understand. Apart from this, the CSR policy of the company must
give an idea about the working of the company like what the company does and what is the actual
business model of the company. Every policy has to be implemented with a proper strategy. So, CSR
should also have a clear strategy that aims to change the face of the community in the positive manner
and help its people in developing themselves. The CSR activities must not be called off after one or two
events, but, the efforts should be continuous, though they can be gradual, but the ultimate influence on
the society must be positive (Patrizia, 2012). So, if Westlands is planning to create a ethical investment
fund, they must make sure that the contribution in that fund is flowing continuously, the utilization of
those funds are happening in positive way and all the funds are channelized in the right direction for the
betterment of the society.
In addition to the above features of CSR practice, the management of the company should judge the
credibility of other companies who are involved in CSR activities by evaluating that which needs of the
society are targeted by them and how they are approaching to address those needs (Cho, 2013). For
example, some companies identify the need of educating the orphans, giving them medical care or
taking efforts towards their adoption process. So, the management of these companies can be judged
on the basis of how many children they have educated in total, how many expenses they have incurred
for the treatment of children and how many kids have been adopted till now under the CSR initiative of
that company. There are many companies that try to address multiple social challenges in the
environment but, they end up messing up things and no significant progress is made to solve the social
issues.
Westlands must take care of the fact that the policy related to CSR is well-developed and all the
stakeholders of the company, internal or external, understands the policy and support it. the intention
of the CSR initiative by Westland must be clear to all the people and it should give a detailed explanation
about what it intends to do by creating the ethical investment fund, what all areas will it target and how
it will approach the society with that fund. In addition to this, Westlands must look for qualified partners

who are experts in a particular social issue that it plans to deal with. This will not only help in giving an
expert knowledge to the people, but it will also help in supporting the credibility of the policy of the
company.
There is one more important feature of good CSR policy. The policy must be able to evaluate the results
of its implementation. The company must provide the tools to the society by which they can measure
the success of the programs done under CSR. Also, all the tasks under the CSR initiative must have
timelines and deadlines so that the milestone of the policy can be met easily (Costa, 2013). If Westland
takes care of these things, it will be able to allocate the capital in this program in an effective manner
and the goals will be met on time. For example, ethical investment fund that Westland plans to set up
aims to help the cancer patients in their treatment. So, the tools that can be given to people for
evaluating the success of this program can be, representation of data in graphical form, tables, pictures,
videos etc. This will help the people to know that how many people were treated, how many people got
success in fighting the dieses and they were cured, how many patients died during treatment, the way
these funds were utilized etc.
Therefore, it is advised that Westlands must incorporate all the essential features of CSR in its policy. It
must evaluate the other company’s management carefully and should look at their CSR initiatives from
different angles. The effective CSR program will help Westlands in effectively managing its governance,
legal risks, the social and economic threats etc. It will gain the support of its stakeholders and it will have
a positive impact on the society.

References:
Cho, C., Michelon, G., Patten, D. M., & Roberts, R. W. (2013). CSR Report Assurance in the United
States: An Empirical Investigation of Demand and Stakeholder Benefits. In 36th Annual European
Accounting Association Conference, Paris (May).
Costa, R., & Menichini, T. (2013). A multidimensional approach for CSR assessment: the importance of
the stakeholder perception. Expert Systems with Applications, 40(1), 150-161.
Patten, D. M., & Zhao, N. (2014, June). Standalone CSR reporting by US retail companies. In Accounting
Forum (Vol. 38, No. 2, pp. 132-144). Elsevier.
Patrizia, G. (2012). Social performance enhances financial performance. Benefits from CSR. THE
ANNALS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ORADEA, 112.