Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability Report

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CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND SUSTAINABILITY
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CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND SUSTAINABILITY
Table of Contents
Part 1..........................................................................................................................................3
Introduction............................................................................................................................3
Discussion and Analysis........................................................................................................3
Definition of CSR and Sustainability.................................................................................3
Models of CSR and Sustainability.....................................................................................5
Benefits of Implementing CSR..........................................................................................6
Challenges of Implementing CSR......................................................................................7
Examples from a Business Entity......................................................................................9
Conclusion............................................................................................................................10
Recommendations................................................................................................................10
Part 2........................................................................................................................................13
Introduction..........................................................................................................................13
Communication Skills..........................................................................................................13
ICT Skills.............................................................................................................................14
Research Skills.....................................................................................................................15
Team Work Skills................................................................................................................15
Time Management...............................................................................................................16
Problem Solving Skills.........................................................................................................16
References................................................................................................................................17
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Part 1
Introduction
As business industries throughout the world are developing at a rapid pace, the need for
acting according to the society is increasing. This is need for contributing to good causes is
related to the stakeholders of consumers and government organizations. If the contribution
from any firm is recorded in the good books of the government, it is bound to create a good
impression on the consumer market and thus it will increase goodwill. In addition to this, as
sustainable approach in business operations will makes sure that resources are consumed in a
manner that is smart (Tamayo, 2017). Such processes will guarantee that a part of CSR is
being satisfied and it will also make sure that business is saving its capital. Thus, CSR when
coupled with the sustainable approach makes activities more society centric. The following
report will discuss more on the topic of sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility as
a tool for operational success and stakeholders’ management.
The discussions below will provide a detailed introduction what CSR is and why it is directly
or indirectly related with both the external and internal environment of the firm. Examples of
a few real life situations will also be provided for better comprehension.
Discussion and Analysis
Definition of CSR and Sustainability
Though Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) are often misinterpreted as
similar terms, they differ in meaning. Carroll (2016) mentioned that Sustainability, mainly
originated in natural resource economics could be defined as the ability to maintain ones
matter, processes and operation by maintaining social, economic and environmental
obligations simultaneously. Sustainability is a term broadly used in many fields associated
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with sustainable environment and social development. On the other hand, CSR is referred to
the responsibility of an organisation towards the society. It refers to social, economic and
environmental responsibilities of the organisation. CSR has gained popularity with the trend
of socially responsible investment. With the intervention of NGOs and standard policies
implemented by authorities, organisations have embraced CSR in all their operations. They
take full responsibility of their actions and the way it affects the society and the environment.
Sustainable buildings are being made as a step towards this and organisations publish
internationally recognized reports on their CSR.
With the increased awareness regarding CSR, organisations try to profit themselves by
incorporating sustainability. They do so by promoting their sustainable activities in their
journals, magazines and annual reports. Siew (2015) opined that these documents highlight
their social activities like sustainable development of infrastructure, charitable donations,
increasing awareness among employees and encouraging them to take part in social and
environmental development activities. Some of the organisations even go to extents to
relinquish non biodegradables in their campus and use of only recyclable and eco friendly
resources in their manufacturing of products.
Organisations do this so in order to stand out in the industry and be noticed by their clients.
The organisations aim at achieving popularity and profitability by adopting CSR. They try to
prove themselves and create a positive image of themselves towards their clients, authorities
and all stakeholders including employees and investors. They try to shape their perception
towards the world by highlighting their sustainable achievements and actions not only in their
report documents but also in their brochures and websites. Though it is important for
profitable businesses to assess the increase of revenue in adopting CSR activities, it is quite
infeasible to calculate and compare its financial benefits. Thus the organisations calculate
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their profitability in terms of client engagement and good will development among interested
stakeholders.
Models of CSR and Sustainability
Corporate Social Responsibility is, however their responsibility towards agents other than
their stakeholders. Redman (2006) defined these responsibilities and proposed three
conceptual models of corporate social responsibility and sustainability. These models are
explained below.
 Traditional Conflict Model: Profitable organisations, whose main aim is to generate
revenue and grow in the market have an obligation to their investors and share holders
to generate output and maximize profitability. However, Midttun et al. (2015)
argued that the organisation finds it an obligation to adopt CSR activities and
promote social, environmental and economic sustainability. These activities like paid
time periods for employees when they are encouraged to perform sustainable
exercises are financial overheads to the organisation. Thus, a conflict arises between
serving to the stakeholders’ interest and serving to the society. The corporate
managers face a dilemma about which responsibility they should prioritize and attend
to. Such corporations are forced to choose among social responsibilities and financial
responsibilities to their shareholders.
 Added Value Model: According to Marques-Mendes and Santos (2016), though the
proposers of this model acknowledge the rise in conflict in some business decisions,
they propose an optimistic approach towards investing in CSR and sustainable
activities. It shows that the investments made could be profitable on several degrees.
The CSR investment could benefit the organisation by making it more eco friendly
and attract more environment conscious entities. Since the social media serves as the
major platform to spread awareness of environmental and social degradation, the
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integration of CSR activities and sustainability concepts would attract consumers that
are more socially conscious. Socially active employees would also be attracted by the
ideology and enhance their productivity to provide more dedicated service. The model
further emphasis on the fact that the problems faced due to negative image, if any of
organisations could also be mitigated by adopting CSR.
 Multiple Goals Model: Termed as a rather radical method of adopting CSR, it is
supported by few corporate officers. Garcia et al. (2016) stated that the model states
personal life quality involving social and environmental factors as an economic
activity. Thus the proposers of this model regard social and environmental value
factors in business as superior to economic factors. They are more socially conscious
and are inclined to adopt CSR activities. They pose more importance to the quality of
living rather than fulfilling the financial interests of shareholders and investors. This
model aims at establishing the fact that there are more important factors influencing a
business decision than financial ones.
Benefits of Implementing CSR
CSR or Corporate Social Responsibility can be termed as a very important activity that must
be given the necessary amount of importance due to the fact that it plays a key role in
stakeholder management. Stakeholders can belong to both internal and external environments
and CSR helps in making sure that any interest of such stakeholders are taken care of.
However, it can be argued that CSR only looks forward to the interest of the external
stakeholders such as government organizations, communities, consumers, competitors and a
few others (Spence, 2019). The positives of implementing CSR in an organizational context
are as follows –
 CSR helps in making sure that the organizational activities are completed efficiently
by employees who are talented and fresh within the working culture. CSR pushes
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organizations in employing candidates from the local communities and this makes
sure that new and talented employees are showcasing their skills and knowledge in
the working environment. This creates a chance for the firm to develop and be more
competitive within its industry. The internal environment also gets competitive as the
existing employees also look to perform at an efficient level. This will be possible if
there are incentive schemes attached with the paying systems.
 In a market that is largely competitive, it can be said that exposure is very necessary
as it creates brand image that will be essential for increase of sale figures. If any
organization invests significantly in its CSR activities, mostly it gets recognized by a
large part of the consumer market and this helps in making sure that the organization
creates its own brand (Wang, 2016). However, in this case there are considerations to
be made. Firstly, the firm must be able to make sure that the CSR Activity, in which
they are investing, has a scope to be recognized by the wider communities.
 Capital can also be accessed indirectly by investing in CSR activities; CSR generally
helps in making sure that organizations are in the focus of investors from across
different industries. Thus, if any organization is able to makes sure that they are
executing activities effectively, then there will be situations where the firm will attract
investments by their gripping performances in the
Challenges of Implementing CSR
Ever since the emergence of the concept of CSR and Triple Bottom Line, the practical
implementation of CSR in the business operations of the organisations has faced a number of
different challenges and issues. Some of the major issues are:
 According to Mbogoh and Ogutu (2017), in most of the cases, the government of a
country have to design and enforce relevant laws and regulations for setting the CSR
goals for the various business organisations, and making it mandatory for them to
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achieve that goal. However, this does not become possible if the government of a
country is unstable, which hampers the implementation of CSR policies for the
business organisations.
 In most of the business sectors, the operating organisations still believe that the idea
of CSR is unnecessary, and a business organisation only have to concentrate on
maintaining and enhancing the customer satisfaction in order to maintain their
business profitability and sustainability. Nave and Ferreira (2019) argued that this is
causing the business organisations to find ways to bypass the government regulations
and abandon their CSR projects to earn more profit, reducing the overall positive
impact of the entire CSR concept.
 In the rural and semi-urban areas, the CSR activities are almost always conducted by
the local agencies, rather than the business organisation itself. However, it has been
seen in many occasions that the consensus among these local agencies is severely
lacking. According to Deus et al. (2019), it is also one of the reasons behind that fact
that many CSR activities of various corporate bodies get repeated without any
reasonable need for it. An even bigger concern is that such a situation results in those
local agencies developing competitive rivalry among them instead of cooperating to
serve the society, which ultimately reduces the effectiveness of the CSR projects.
 Radzi et al. (2018) argued that in many places, the local people and society have little
to no interest in the CSR activities of the various business organisations. The reason
behind this is that among the local societies, there is very little awareness regarding
the CSR projects and their positive effects on their lifestyle. This is undoubtedly one
of the results of the lack of efforts from the various business organisations in
highlighting the benefits of their CSR projects.
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Examples from a Business Entity
Large corporations are more inclined to wards maintaining a good brand image in the society
and thus extensively take care of Corporate Social Responsibility and sustainability issues.
Though arguable, the largest corporation in the information industry at the present time is
Google LLC. According to Duhigg (2016), Google keeps a clean sheet in CSR issues and
focuses on these departments largely as compared to its competitors. They enumerate their
main stakeholders as users, employees, advertisers, investors, governments, and the
community. Keeping them in mind they focus all their business decisions. Google has been
rated as one of the best places to work in the world. Their research and development teams
not only work on new and advanced technology, but they are also focused on eliminating
economic and social challenges by innovative methods.
Google LLC performs their social duties in various ways:
 They aim at eliminating illiteracy by providing education to the deprived and
backward classes of the society. They have donated about 50 million USD towards
this cause (Pratap, 2019).
 Google has a large employee base and the tech giant has a great hand in eliminating
unemployment and poverty.
 Google has become a great power in the US society. The problems faced due to
racism are taken seriously by them, and they provide funds to fight these causes.
Along with these, Google LLC further maintains sustainability through:
 They have designed efficient data centres to reduced power consumption as compared
to others. They also promote sustained use of other resources at these facilities like
water.
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 Google has extensively adopted the use of renewable energy. For over a decade,
Google has remained carbon neutral.
 They have developed sustainable work places by incorporating greenery in their
campuses. They have eco friendly buildings that provide a soothing workplace for
workers.
Conclusion
It can be said that both the external and the internal environment are very important for the
purpose of any organization that aims to earn success. The products or services can be aim
for the stakeholders in the external environment, however, the process of creating the
products or services or adding value to them is executed by the people within the company
and therefore it is ideal that CSR or Corporate Social Responsibilities are aligned with both
types of stakeholders. This will not only ensure the firm’s success but it will also form a
bridge of communication between the business environment and the company.
In the report above, discussion points regarding CSR were analysed in detail and it was
helpful in understanding that different organizations face different sets of aspects that are
related with their external environment and to secure all their interests, CSR is very
important. The definition and concept of CSR and Sustainability helped in understanding that
how both are collected to the day to day activities of any organization. The points of benefits
and challenges in implementing CSR also helped in understanding how managements have to
be prepared for the commitments towards the interests of the society.
Recommendations
Based on the earlier discussions, several valid recommendations can be made, which will
help the business organisations to better implement their CSR projects in order to develop the
society in which they operate their businesses.
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 The business organisations can take the help of various private bodies for maintaining
the regulations regarding their CSR projects. In fact, in countries where the rule of
law is especially weak, if the business organisations collectively appoint a non-profit
organisation in determining the laws and regulations regarding the CSR activities, it
will make their CSR activities more organised and sustainable.
 The business organisations can maintain better communication with the local
agencies, and regularly spread awareness among the local societies regarding the
importance of the CSR activities. This will reduce the frictions and rivalry between
that various local agencies in terms of implementing the CSR activities, and it will
also enhance the positive effects of the CSR among the various local societies.
 Finally, the business organisations have to optimise their business strategies in such a
way that CSR activities will become an integral part of their business operations. This
will allow the business organisations to give back productive values to the society
while conducting their usual business operations, which will enhance their business
profitability and sustainability while still maintaining the desired output from their
CSR activities.
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