We all know the famous aphorism that made the central theme of the first superhit Spiderman film: With great power comes great responsibility. In the nature of all aphorisms, this one is true too; once in a position of power, the world looks up to you and relies on you whether you’re one famous individual or an entire business coporation, which serves as the basic philosophy behind Corporate Social Responsibility.
Business corporations, big or small, have recently started to pay more attention to their social impacts and responsibilities on a global and local scale. Globally, they’ve taken on the role of an altruistic philantrophist by providing to charities or investing in emerging, potential markets. For example, Coca-Cola, one of the world’s largest drinks company recently decided to take up responsibility of water conservation, in collaboration with WWF. Closer to home, TESCO has been provding scholarships for financially disadvantaged high school students in Thailand. Even Marks&Spencer is planning to improve education in Uganda for 15,000 children.
On a local scale things are just as busy. ASDA, as recently as last week decided to take up the responsibility of the under-age drinking issue here in England. It has banned the sale of ’shooters’, which is a popular drink for young teenagers, across all its stores in hopes to end underaged drinking and binging problems. It has also considered carrying out private prosecutions to punish under-age drinkers.
According to AccountAbility, an organisation that brings together institutions and corporations to develop ideas and connections between them, in 2007 European companies, such as BP and TESCO, were all scoring high in terms of their engagement and impact on their surrounding and global communities.
But, how much of all this activity is genuine? Sure, corporations are creatively spewing out innovations and ideas, but to what extent is it because they actually care about these issues? A lot of the sceptics amongst us assert that, in fact, it’s all another marketing technique. As The Economist stated in a recent edition, all these efforts are simply “plain risk management” and a way to “burnish its brand”. A survey they carried out revealed that more than 50 per cent of business corporations adopted a ‘corporate-responsibility’ policy because it leads to a better brand reputation. Even the San Francisco association, Businesq For Social Responsibility, found in a survey that 82 per cent of corporations and businesses feel Corporate Social Responsibility is important because it impacts what consumers buy and who they attract into the workforce, meaning more profits and productivity.
Furthermore, not only do they believe its an obligatory factor of a competitive market, the corporations act in that way too. Recently, TESCO on one hand criticised the government for its incompetence at improving the education system in Britain while on the other hand it avoided paying around almost £1bn of taxes, as stated in The Guardian. Basically, while it was publically claiming it was responsible and concerned, it was avoiding its own responsibilities.
At the end of the day however, whether their acts are genuine or empty promotional schemes, what matters most is whether these corporations are actually making a difference; the ends matter more than the means.
