The Rise of Corporate Social Responsibility

Wednesday 12th March, 2008

This is one of the definition from the csr.gov.uk and it say, 'The Government sees CSR as the business contribution to our sustainable development goals. Essentially it is about how business takes account of its economic, social and environmental impacts in the way it operates – maximising the benefits and minimising the downsides.'

CSR activities may be divided into two broad areas:

Proactive – This includes all activities intended to deliver socially-desirable ends. Examples include making charitable contributions, giving work to those usually overlooked by employers and paying better-than-market prices to producers of certain goods.

Defensive – This describes activities that minimise negative social impacts of business activities, going beyond the minimum standards required by law. This could include voluntarily avoiding certain additives, enhanced standards of animal welfare and environment friendly policies such as minimising packaging.

(source: http://www.igd.com/CIR.asp?menuid=99&cirid=1434)


This lecture as you can see reflected on the rise of corporate responsibility and we had a guest lecturer, Adam Garfunkel come and talk about the aspects of CSR. He has 12years experience in this sector and had worked with clients such as adidas, Royal Bank of Scotland, United Nations Environment Programme, etc.


He said that companies working in the public interest to promote social and environmental or sustainability objectives (IPPR) and the Core elements of CSR
•voluntary action of business
–beyond compliance, commitment to ethical behaviour, managing processes
•to achieve positive social outcomes
–quality of life improvements for employees, community and society in the long-term
•whilst benefiting its business objectives
–creating wealth

He also touches on the aspect of why is CSR here now and the answers to the questions were

•Globalisation
•The state of the planet
•International agreements, government regulation
•Socially responsible investment
•The information age
•Risk and reputation management
•Consumer demand


Nowadays Social Responsibilty has become a very important tool for the companies.They want their companies to be seen more social resonsible towards society. Examples like Marks and Spencers they had come with a Marks and Spencer Plan A which is their five-year, 100-point plan to tackle some of the biggest challenges facing their business and the world. It will see them working with their customers and their suppliers to combat climate change, reduce waste, safeguard natural resources, trade ethically and build a healthier nation. (Source: http://www.marksandspencer.com/gp/node/n/43451031?ie=UTF8&mnSBrand=core)

Marks and Spencer's approach to CSR is managing CSR well as it will allow them to identify potential risks to the Company and respond to areas of performance where they fall behind. More importantly it also means they can identify opportunities to differentiate themselves from their competitors. CSR can help them to draw shoppers to our stores, attract and retain the best staff, make them a partner of choice with suppliers and create value for their shareholders.

All this benefits the companies as it helps in building strong reputation and beand loyalty towards the customers.

Another example of a company that benefited from CSR programme is the Body Shop where they had a campaign as ' Stop Violence at Home' and they also had a strong hold against animal testing, defend Human Rights and Protect the planet. This helps the company to build up strong and loyal customers.

Later on in the class we had a class exercise on a CSR project. We had to create a positive social/ environmental impact for Transport for London which was also very interesting where everyone had come up wid different CSR projects. Our group had come up with something to do with the employees working for Transport for london. The employees include all drivers, cleaners, operational/ techincal staff, security and the administration staff. We had come up with some of the emotional aspect that could touch upon our target audience and it had turned to be not too bad.

Sources: Adam Garfunkel's presentation