Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainable Development

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One example of a company using sustainability to promote brand image and increase brand value would be Coca-Cola. According to the American Marketing Association, Coca-Cola had a decreasing brand value of $5.1 billion between 2003 and 2007. This can be credited to the increasing health concerns associated with a lot of their products. So what did they do? They decided to come up with a way to get their customers’ loyalty back through programs that would increase their triple bottom line. One of the successful campaigns that they invested in was to bring clean and acceptable drinking water to communities in India. Some would say that this is just a CSR campaign to improve their brand image, however, Coca-Cola came up with a way to help the environment and the people associated in these communities while creating more brand value. This campaign also improves Coca-Cola’s business within the country as well. By creating ways to bring cleaner water to India, they are able to use cleaner water with the production of their beverages. This helped to take their global value from $41.41 billion in 2006 to $83.84 billion in 2015. Coca-Cola’s ability to come up with this successful sustainable strategy shows that they have a large investment in their corporate social responsibility.

The Role of Civil Society in CSR

The role of Civil Society as it pertains to corporate social responsibility and even sustainable development is to push big businesses to behave responsibly. This can be done in many ways whether that be through boycotts or other campaigns.

A perfect example of civil society campaigning for a company that is seen to behave unethically to change is Wal-Mart. The campaign is called “Making Change at Wal-Mart,” and there is even a website for it that explains why citizens are outraged (makingchangeatwalmart.org). On this website you can find facts pertaining to Wal-Mart and their role in the environment. Some of the key points include that Wal-Mart produces only 3% of its energy from renewable resources compared to some of its competitors such as Kohl’s and STAPLES that produce up to 100% of their energy from renewable resources. Even though they claim to be an industry leader in sustainable development, their self-reported greenhouse emissions have gone up 14% since 2005. They are also a massive user of coal-based electricity. In 2013, Wal-Mart’s electricity use required 4,240,000 tons of coal. Sustainable development is just one part of the website that lists problems with Wal-Mart. There are sections containing information regarding health care, the African-American community, political funding, and even taxes and subsidiaries.

This campaign is a perfect example of a Civil Society seeing a problem and doing what they can to fix what they believe is taking advantage of the earth’s resources and people in order to provide for their corporate structure. Since Sustainable Development is not strictly regulated, it is important for the citizens to call for the change that they want. They are calling out Wal-Mart’s corporate structure and it is having a negative impact on Wal-Mart’s success as their net income dropped by $2 billion as can be seen on Yahoo Finance. This does not necessarily reflect upon their lack of sustainable development, however, an argument is to be made that it is, in fact, a result of poor corporate social responsibility. Displaying poor ethical understanding and choices does not go unseen in today’s business world and Wal-Mart could be dealing with the backlash from customers on their poor ethical decisions in the past, today.

Methods of Regulation and Environmental Management Systems

There are five methods of regulation that the government and businesses adopt to control how businesses are allowed to function as it pertains to pollution. These methods span from being extremely controlled by the government to giving companies freedom in setting their own environmental standards. The order from most controlled to the most free forms of regulation are as follows: command and control, flexible enforcement, market incentives, required disclosure, and voluntary compliance. The command and control method involves the government commanding the reduction of pollution and controlling how it is done. Although it may seem like the best option in environmental regulation, it is often times inefficient and costly. This method allows for minimal options within a corporation. Rather than a corporation finding the best method for reducing pollution, they may be forced to do it the way the government would like it done. This can actually lead to unethical behavior or illegal reporting. The middle of the spectrum involves market incentive regulation. This allows for incentives to businesses for controlling pollution while allowing them to do it on their own terms. The regulation strategy that involves the most freedom is voluntary compliance. This is regulation without legal sanctions, so regulation is left completely up to the business. Often times, this course of action will be taken by companies that are already ahead of the curb on pollution standards. It allows these companies to easily prepare for any control strategies that would take place in the future. This allows firms to be prepared for what is to come so there is less stress when regulation becomes more and more imminent.

One method that many firms have taken aim towards is acquiring Environmental Management Systems (EMS). Adopted by companies that want to stay on top of their environmental plan. This allows for an organization to manage environmental programs in a systematic, planned, and documented manner. This ensures that the company can track their environmental activity throughout the entire company and present it to internal and external shareholders. Standards to prevent the impacts that a firm has on the environment include precautionary action, pollution prevention, product analysis, environmental marketing, and environmental metrics which are all defined by the ISO 14001. This method also allows for constant growth in all of these fields.

Conclusion

Upon researching and studying up on the topics of corporate social responsibility and sustainable development, it is obvious that there is no perfect plan for implementing corporate social responsibility. Sustainable development is one way to employ it and ensure that a corporation is up to industry standards, however, whenever a corporation is faced with an ethical decision, there is almost never an instance in which all parties walk away pleased. With all of the pollution and environmental damage that businesses have done, it is reasonable and expected to see corporations