The issues of Corporate Social Responsibility

The resultant roles of corporate Social accountability corporate fond province (CSR) is withal kn profess as bodily fear and corporate citizenship, responsible action, responsible action constant (SRB), or the performance of amicable institutions. Ideally, the policy of corporate head-disposed province is a compact, self-regulation and the mechanism by which the counterfeit would monitor and ensure the inscription to the law and ethical amounts and global rules. (William et al, 2005). The development of the vexationes in cl maneuvering the responsibility by the impact of its activities on the environment, consumers and workers, local anaesthetic communities, stakeholders and all former(a) members of the commonplace domain. The practice of corporate friendly responsibility is a subject of debate and criticism and widespread. Proponents argue that in that localization of function is immobile demand for the issue of accessible responsibility of businesses, and companies benefit in some(prenominal) ways by working with a broader perspective and pineer than their possess direct, any(prenominal) short- b order of battle kale. Critics argue that the act of corporate sociable responsibility is the primary economical role of companies, and separates believed that no to a greater extent than window find is decorated , and some say it is an attempt to pre-empt the role of governments as a watchdog on the powerful multinational companies (Argandona, 2001). attach and Spencer plc, to a fault k to solar day as MS, is a world s renowned retail merchant with its headquarters in Westminster, London. It has more than 300 stores across 40 countries and more than 70 stores in UK. MS is famous for its clothes and food products. It was found in 1884 by Thomas Spencer and Michael label in Leeds. Since 2000 the high society tag Spencer began to prolong and explore other beas ho single-valued functionhold products, food, furniture, products for beauty, technology, financial work, etc. In juvenile eld, label Spencer stores act as full-scale shopping centres with grand foodstuff supermarkets, entertainment venues and cafes. The fraternity is controling general merchandise sector and food sector. All these units assume fall ind in shaping up company s vision stating that they want to set a standard through which other company should be measured. These units are centralized by the values of label and Spencer. These include trust, service, value and innovation. (Utting, 2007, 11 13)Each of the units has genuine its specific strategies of Corporate Social Responsibility that is based on the brand-value of trust. The issues that are tackled in the strategies were place through customer research, understanding within business and by interacting with beta stakeholders, government, NGO s etc. An action plan is developed for discourse each issue that arises in mark to balance expectations of the customers and the sta keholders and other impertinent pressures. These issues are divided into trey groups hoi polloi, products and community.People these include the company s employees plus the people who are employed in its mountain chain supply. crossroad this division emphasizes on the production of high quality, valuing that are positive for social and environmental benefits.Community this division emphasizes on the role of the company in helping to maintain and develop places where people give nonice work and tarry easily.For all these groups, label and Spencer have planned a weapons platform with the reveal of conception A. (Archie, 2008)WHAT IS PLAN A? invent A is tag Spencer s comprehensive approach to sustainability which to them is doing the estimable thing . Were doing this because its what you want us to do. Its as well as the right thing to do. Were calling it conception A because we believe its now the only way to do business (tag Spencer s, 2010). On 15th Jan, 2007, Marks and Spencer took an initiative by launching a program go to bedn as project A. This was to bring a dramatic affix in the environmental sustainability in five historic period. throw A contains 100 commitments for five years in order to address the major environmental and social challenges approach by Marks and Spencer, today and in future ( label and spencer, 2010). They have a tag-line for it which states Because on that point is no Plan B. These commitments cover five different themes sustainable raw material, climatic change, fair take time offnership, health and waste with the purpose ofI. No waste depart be sent to landfillII. Become Neutral to cytosineIII. Bring extension in the sustainability of resourceIV. Help in amend the lives of employees working in their supply chain de representativement (Brown, 2008, 125 147)V. yield a healthy lifestyle to the customers and the employees of the companyTo begin with, as a part of Plan A, the iconic reusable brown bag was in troduced in the year 2007. This brought a hope that it will decrease the usage of ductile bags over the next few years. In 2008, Marks and Spencer introduced the 5p carrier bags arrangement at their stores. The customers were supposed to pay 5p per vest carrier bag which was of standard size for their food purchases. This scheme was implemented as a part of Plan A, saying that it discourages the use of customary plastic bags. All the profits gained from the sale of these bags are given to the Groundwork UK.To become a degree centi enjoin neutral company, Marks and Spencer committed to only using the carbon equalizers as their last resort, confining to the cases where is required by the government or where the viridity air, road transport and technology will not be unattached for the predicted future. In 2008, Marks and Spencer had 3 operational wind tribunes, one in Methlick and two near Strichen. These generate power that is enough to cover three stores through National Grid. In 2009, the company started buying 2.6TWh of the renewable pushing from the Npower which was enough to provide zilch to all of the MS offices and stores in Wales and England.In 2010, Marks Spencer s set out 80 new commitments with the aim of becoming the world s most sustainable major retail merchant by 2015. This they hope to achieve by engaging their customers in mental synthesis Plan A qualities into all of its 2.7 billion products and assist the customers to develop their own Plan A eco-plan. Also, they intend to move Plan A from merely a plan to How we do business by integrating it into processes and braggy its people the required tools, skills and motivation to solve a difference. In order to achieve this, Marks Spencer s launched a 50m innovation fund, as well as sustainability programmes for its food and general merchandise suppliers, sustainable agriculture programmes for its farmers and growers. As part of bms to extend the Plan A to the employees, they are been offered free radix insulation, a free home energy monitor and a day s paid leave each year for a propose work.Benefits of Incorporating Corporate Social Responsibility Plan A of Marks and SpencerFirstly, Marks and Spencer got the value of differentiation. This does not necessarily relate to the product but in addition defines the moral values of the company. With the implementation of Plan A, Marks and Spencer got benefited with appeal part. A recent research states that, 88 percent of the customers will be more concerned in buying the products from the company that is spryly working in the society and engages and supports the activities in improving the environment of the society. Thus, it has provided an advantage to marks and Spencer by be well known for their active participation in Corporate Social Responsibility methods. They can easily attract their existing customers to increase their sales and they can even attract new customers by their Plan A project. This in turn , helps in adding up the profits made by their stores. But these profits eventually are used by Marks and Spencer in investing in the strategies of Corporate Social Responsibility. Although, Marks and Spencer can broadcast high price for their differentiated products in order to cover the live of enthronement in CSR. The reason due to which they can charge higher price is their active participation in being socially responsible. This in the long run will increase their profit margin. This is a basic rule for CSR (Cuthbertson, 2011)Secondly, the workforce at Marks and Spencer is very capable with some of the programs that the company is running. One of these projects was the Ready to Work project. In this project, Marks and Spencer helped around six hundred homeless people from UK to acquire work experience while they were being mentored by a friend. Moreover, above 30 percent of these people, who were internee, were later on provided a job because of the success of the project. This program came up with a market research which was fortunate and was stimulated by the founders of Marks and Spencer s system stating that the best and guaranteed way to acquire long success is to have good relationship with your suppliers, employees and the society. This message acted as a backbone for all the CSR strategies of Marks and Spencer.A survey based on 500 employees of the company, stated that 75 percent of the employees felt that the projects has contributed in reservation Marks and Spencer a great place to work. They also said that it helped them in increasing and enhancing their skills. This also led to an extra motivated workforce who liveliness completely comfortable at their workplace and have led to a decrease in the rate of employee turnover.Thirdly, Plan A also covers the part of fair trade extensively. This is an issue which has gained UK s focus more than any other country. Marks and Spencer has purchased around a third of the world s fair trade cotton (Cuthbertson, 2011).Not all the achievements were remarkably good. For cold shoulder down the emission of CO2, Marks and Spencer tightened up the needs for attaining a company car. These steps did drop the corporate auto fleet from 488 to 469, but this did not bring any significant change (Damien et al 2010) compared to other achievements, this strategy must be left out of the spotlight.The biggest disadvantage of CSR for Marks and Spencer is the live that is invested in the implementation of these strategies. Plan A introduced by Marks and Spencer had an estimated exist of around 200 million. Although, the CSR strategy helps in gaining profits in the long run and it helps in becoming financially strong, it still requires a huge amount of investment to implement the strategies. Thus, if the strategy of Corporate Social Responsibility is not successful in producing a desired amount of proceeding in attracting the customers, then it could cause great loss to the investors. This lo ss index not be disastrous for Marks and Spencer however it can price its reputation. Although, the Corporate Social Responsibility is about enriching the stakeholder, but if the strategy is not successful in bringing extra profit then it plays on the morals and values of the investor to consider what a good outcome is and what a bad outcome is.Another disadvantage of this strategy would be the cost of keeping the customers happy. In the Plan A of Mark and Spencer, there are twenty targets for enhancing the fair assistantship between the suppliers. Initially, the investment should be bounteous as it targets the suppliers belonging to the international market (Beder, 2007).The most essential factor in this Plan is the consumer power. According to the research, around 88 percent people would prefer buying a product of the company which is extremely active in social activities and are working with the concept for enhancing the quality of life. Therefore, Marks and Spencer cannot bypass this point as according to the economic climate these days, a customer moves on to the next best solution available depending on the morals they chose to follow. Thus, to build up CSR strategies are a positive investment in holding back the goodwill and image of the company, which Marks and Spencer has already established.In line to achieve a target of been the most sustainable retailer in the world, Marks Spencer s have over the years shifted from almsgiving to community investment and subsequently corporate social responsibility. entree Plan A was its next logical step but there is still a long way to go.To ascertain the extent to which the achievements of Plan A would result in Marks Spencer s being the world most sustainable retailer, it will be important to understand what sustainability means. Brundtland s (1987) defined Sustainability as the development that meets the needs of the present world without elastic the ability of the future generations to meet their ow n needs . This approach to economic growth perhaps includes a social responsibility to its stakeholders and a wider responsibility for the impact of its activities on the environment.With the sustainability plans on the newspaper publisher being that of Marks and Spencer s alone, there is no basis for comparison with other major retailers to know the extent to which its sustainability measures surpasses them. Also, by using the word sustainable, they universalised it to their nub. They fail to know that sustainability could have several meanings for people different people. For instance, findings have shown that people in scurvy countries see sustainability as poverty reduction where as in developed countries sustainability is linked to climate change. It will be a fallacy to make people believe there is a universal word for the term sustainability as there is no agreement over the specific meaning of the word and this makes it impossible to measure the performance of a company i n that area.ASSESSING THE QUALITY OF MARKS AND SPENCERS CSR REPORT HOW WE DO BUSINESSCorporate social responsibility stateing which is voluntary is said to be a public account of environmental, social and ethical impacts of a company. It demonstrates accountability, transparency and credibility gaining the stakeholders trust. In order to assess the quality of Marks and Spencer s CSR report, we shall employ the globular reporting initiatives which sets out the principles and performance indicators that organisations can use to measure and report their economic, environmental and social performance (GRI, 2011). These principles include materiality, stakeholder inclusiveness, sustainability context and completeness. Likewise, the standard apocalypse try ons the strategy and profile of the organisation, the management approach as well as the performance indicators of the organisation.So using the GRI guidelines to analyse the report (Appendix 1) I shall grade the Marks and Spencer s CSR report below a C borderline level despite it was assured by an independent third society Ernst and Young, to guarantee accuracy of the report and in line with best practice.To me, it failed to report the stripped requirements. Using the GRI framework, there was no report of some mandatary disclosures needed to attain a C level. These include (2.4) where it failed to report the location of its headquarters. Also in the profile disclosure, they failed to report on (4.15) which is the basis for appellation and selection of stake holders whom they engage with.In the performance and indication section, despite not giving any report on human rights unpack for HR1 and HR2 where sketchy reports were given, they met the minimum requirement of the GRI framework of reporting at to the lowest degree one out of each Performance Indicator.In all, the CSR report could be said to focus primarily on profile disclosures and this tend s to be the major strength of the report where reports on performance indicators were incomplete and in some cases not account.The stakeholder inclusiveness of the report was thoroughly reported. Pages 42 and 43 in the report contained a stakeholder dialogue which is quite impressive as stakeholder dialogue is one of the basic parties of a sustainability report. Marks and Spencer s reported how they engaged Ernst and Young to gather impartial feedback from a range of organisations which was also listed in the report. These organisations are NGO s which focus on sustainability. The responses of the stakeholders were also listed in the report and were quite enlightening as there were not just compliments but also suggestions for Marks and Spencer s sustainability direction. Also, marks and Spencer s responses to the suggestions were listed.The major concern about stakeholder reporting was on omit of information on how many stakeholders from each NGO who were consulted provided feedback and why they chose to use external figures to facil itate the dialogue rather than discussing with marks and Spencer s people. Also, it wasn t disclosed in the report how much stakeholder input influenced the selection of Plan A commitment.Marks and Spencer s CSR report is both wide ranging and highly focused. Under the headings of Climate, waste, Natural resources, fair partner, health and well being, each issue is broken down into targets set for the reporting year, performance in the flow year and future goals. This approach is highly effective in equipment casualty of presenting a clear and thorough picture of the broad scope of Marks and Spencer s CSR related activities.The report is quite balanced as there were a handful of achievements listed in each of the headings such as berth of carbon emissions from operations by 8% and improving store energy by 19%. Also, quite a couple of the challenges faced by the organisation was also noted which include rise in business travel emissions despite the Green travel policy. They also noted a decline in the sales of organic food despite their effort to introduce new products. So I think it just wasn t a win- win basis in the report.ACCESSING THE EXTENT TO WHICH PLAN A COULD BE ADOPTED SUCCESSFULLY BY A RETAILER IN A DEVELOPING COUNTRY.The term develop countries is used to collectively puff nations that have low per capita incomes and are less industrialised (UNDP 2006). Corporate social responsibility(CSR) in development countries have to deal with the formal and informal musical mode in which businesses contribute to governance, ethical, social labour and environmental condition of growing countries which they operate and perhaps remain sensitive to prevailing religious, historical and heathen context (Visser 2007).Contrary to the nature of CSR in developed countries, CSR in developing countries present a distinctive set of agenda which are sure different from those faced in developed countries. CSR priorities in developing countries differ. For some, m eliorate ethical responsibilities and incorporating good governance are assigned the highest. Whereas in others, tackling human immunodeficiency virus/AIDS, improving working conditions, provision of basic services supply chain integrity and poverty alleviation are at the peak of CSR priority..Major issues pertaining to CSR in developing world as at large relates to the strategic indigence for embellishing socially responsible practices. These actions appear to reflect Carroll s (1991) competing priorities which are firms adopt CSR in order to meet their economic, legal, ethical and discretionary responsibilities.Conventional comprehension suggests that CSR is more relevant to organisations operating in the developed countries due to gilded expectations of society responsible behaviour. In view of this, I she use Bangladesh to examine the extent to which a retailer could adopt Marks and Spencer s Plan A because it possess the characteristics of a developing country.Basically, for the success of Plan A in any developing country by another retailer, the retailer needs to operate the strategies according to the culture, ethical background, nationality, religion and race of the developing country. As Plan A is committed to improve the lives of people in their supply chain sector (Peter, 2010).With the review of the state of government policy and support for CSR in Bangladesh, corporations have hence increased their commitment to CSR other than profit making and now complying with safety regulations. For example, CARE Bangladesh initiated a successful CSR programme with BATA where the company is using the extensive network of RARE to enhance its environmental friendly products door to door in rural communities. With this, Plan A will be successful due to governments supporting policies which fix room for CSR investment.Also, the issue of global warming which has to deal with the climate, it is obvious that this is touch both the developed and developing count ries and therefore governments are imposing on companies to develop CSR which will minimize carbon emission. So a retailer who adopts the Plan A will definitely succeed but will result in high operation cost to the company.Plan A can also be successful in a developing country if the retailer seeks the help of its suppliers in developing the factories with either being ethical or encouraging environmental characteristics. They can even march on 10,000 farmers to join their sustainable agriculture program just like M S (Mike, 2008).The Retailer can also implement their Plan A project and be successful by becoming an important retailer to make sure that their key raw material such as soya, palm oil, coffee, beef, leather, etc, are coming from sustainable resources which do not contribute to deforestation.Contrary to this, Plan A which according to marks and Spencer s is doing the right thing will be successful at a minimal rate if adopted by a retailer in Bangladesh. This is so becau se of the prevailing high rate of poverty and corruption. Basically the priority of Marks and Spencer s plan A, which focuses on climate change, waste, waste, natural resources , fair partner performance health and well being may not be in line with CSR priorities in developing countries as they are interested in tackling HIV/AIDS, improving working conditions, provision of basic services supply chain integrity and poverty alleviation.CONCLUSIONIn this contemporary era, it is 100 percent important that companies differentiate themselves from rest of the market by working on developing strategies for their Corporate Social responsibilities. In order to make their strategy work successfully, companies need to strongly highlight instruct people with their CSR plans. Keeping the research in mind, it is important for the companies to differentiate themselves. The company should also be aware of the cost that involve in the implementation of the plan. Whether you do it for financial rea sons or to feel morally good, CSR plans completely depend on your ethics, both economically and personally.Marks and Spencer has started their journey to make their business more sustainable. Over the past decades, the company has never been stagnant. It has been moving from philanthropy to investing in the community to investing in corporate social responsibilities. In 2007, Plan has proved to be a radical commitment by focusing on specific CSR issues and tackling the sustainability issues.