What is Corporate Social Responsibility?
How can your business, the community and the environment all benefit from it? March 8, 2018In order to keep the deeds of the company under control, every business should own regulatory force. It will ensure the company maintains the best possible image. That’s what Corporate Social Responsibility is about.
Table of Contents
- What is Corporate Social Responsibility?
- The Benefits of Corporate Social Responsibility
- Corporate Social Responsibility Report
- Corporate Social Responsibility Examples
- Ways to Improve Your Company’s CSR
What is Corporate Social Responsibility?
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a form of self-regulation, integrated into the business model of a company. It is also called corporate conscience, corporate citizenship or responsible business.
It impacts the way a company operates on a daily basis. There is a debate about whether these regulations should be required by law and according to a 2017 survey, 53% of the Australian respondents voted in support of mandatory regulations. Which shows more than half of the people see CSR’s benefits.
Some of the Corporate Social Responsibility functions are:
- Partnering with local communities.
- Developing relationships with employees and customers.
- Protect the environment and regulate the deeds of the company.
These are some of the numerous other functions CSR has to perform. But how can Corporate Social Responsibility help your business grow? Let’s find out!
The Benefits of Corporate Social Responsibility
Mandatory or not, every business owner should know the benefits of CSR and integrate self-regulation principles in their business model.
Customers, employees and the government all require companies to be more open and transparent about their business. This, in turn, makes companies do business more effective, offer better products and services.
For new and small businesses, CSR can help with brand recognition, save on costs, access finance, attract media attention and even identify new business opportunities. Contact the Australian Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility (ACCSR) to help with your business’ assessment.
CSR & Brand Recognition
Every brand out there benefits when their brand is well recognised. However, this isn’t easy to achieve as it takes a lot of time and work.
The lack of immediate gain for your company shouldn’t discourage you. Increasing your brand’s recognition is something that should be the goal of every company.
By working with local communities, the CSR part of the company can help with spreading your brand, its mission and product, as well.
CSR & Employment
How to attract staff and talented people? Every business needs good staff in order to succeed. Believe it or not, the quality of the staff can vary depending on how good your brand image is.
Along with improving your company’s image, CSR is responsible for creating a relationship with the employees.
A good relationship between the company and the staff always results in more motivated and proactive employees.
CSR & Human Rights
Human rights aren’t usually a responsibility that companies have to deal with. Those rights should be enforced by the government, however, for the past decade or so, companies also tend to play a huge role in human rights. Because of this, numerous corporations worldwide have committed to maintaining specific human rights standards, such as access to clean drinking water.
This affects all Australian businesses because a range of laws in our country requires corporations to comply with certain right standards. Such human rights are:
- The right to freedom of expression.
- The right of Indigenous people.
- The right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.
Depending on the activity of the company, some of those rights may not be present, or you may have much more than just three.
Much of the work CSR does, is dealing with problems such as discrimination, dealing with court proceedings involving human rights complaints, dealing with discrimination of goods and services, etc.
The reason corporations are involved in human rights protection and CSR is because consumers and investors are demanding businesses act in a socially responsible manner.
CSR & Cost Savings
The impact CSR has on your company is big. Of course, any worth-investing regulatory part of a business needs to save that company money.
CSR can help with cutting back on costs, such as reducing resource use and waste. With the proper regulations, your company can save money and help the environment.
CSR & Access to Finance
In the lifetime of every business, it’s most likely that there will be a need for funding. However, companies that have better branding, transparent business practice and overall good business image, tend to have easier access to funds.
As CSR helps with brand recognition and improving the brand’s image it inevitably helps with the easier access to funds.
The Importance of Corporate Social Responsibility in a Franchise Business
Creating a CSR plan can tremendously help a franchise company to grow. A good CSR plan can determine the outcome of the recruitment process. Things like supporting local communities and charities can attract like-minded individuals to join your company.
Also, a well-thought CSR plan can help with building a culture in your company, which again can be a way of attracting like-minded individuals.
Corporate Social Responsibility Report
Of course, if you are investing money in local communities and the environment, you’d want your customers, employees and investors to know about it. That’s when a CSR report can play a huge role in spreading the word out to the world.
Most companies present a CSR report once a year, highlighting their investments and involvement with the communities. The concept of CSR reporting is very flexible.
Corporate Social Responsibility Examples
As you probably already understood, the corporate social responsibility is used for greater good. To name a few examples, CSR can be used to make researches, reports, charities, volunteer work, and other things that would help the community and environment.
One of the best examples of a business using CSR is Google. The company has implemented numerous green techniques in its company, such as Google Sustainability, which is a corporate effort to use resources efficiently and support renewable power.
Arup
Another business to make an example of is Arup. Arup ranked among the top organisations for CSR in Australia for four consecutive years. The company has a Sustainability policy, which first launched in 2007, which reinforces the companies values. They’ve also created a wide range of monitoring systems, as well as researching and identifying problems such as poverty, water, waste, etc.
Ways to Improve Your Company’s CSR
Improving your CSR may result in a customer choosing you over your competitor. It shows your potential customers that your company is run by a responsible co-citizen of the world.
A few ways to improve your Corporate Social Responsibility is to:
- Implement CSR in your business model. You, the company owner, should be the first to make the first step and make an example to your employees. Be sure you explain how this will benefit everybody.
- Be transparent. In this day and age, it’s very hard to hide for long how your company operates, so you better not have anything to hide and just be open about it.
- Be a conscious buyer. Each supply you buy can be a sustainable choice – from recycled printer paper to carton coffee cups.
- Support local businesses. With this, you not only help small businesses but also help your country’s economy thrive and lower gas emissions (buying local = less time for transportation).
We hope this article helped you better understand the meaning of Corporate Social Responsibility, how it benefits you, your company, your employees, the community, your country and, of course, the environment.
If you have any more questions – be sure to ask them in the comment section below, we’ll take the time to answer you.
