CSR in the era of climate change and sustainability
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) puts the onus back on business enterprises themselves. Under this concept, it becomes the duty of businesses to be conscious of the kind of impact they have on various aspects of society from the economic, social, and environmental perspectives.
CSR requires businesses to self-govern, and become socially responsible and accountable corporate citizens for the sake of their stakeholders. This includes the public and, most importantly, itself because if the businesses ignore the principles of CSR, their stakeholders may very likely be unwilling to be engaged or associated with them.
There may be various rules, regulations, and guidelines which businesses must follow from a national, legal and regulatory standpoint but that is no longer enough. Companies cannot only do the bare minimum in terms of being complaint with the laws in place.
The public's expectations from business entities have increased in recent years and it is fully expected that those business entities which exist and operate within a society must also behave in a responsible and honourable manner.
The requirement nowadays is that such business entities must sincerely make an effort to also improve the environment in which they exist as well as be beneficial to the public in addition to running and operating their business model.
Well planned CSR initiatives can be strategic and useful marketing tools that may help a company establish itself favourably in the perceptions of consumers, investors, and regulators.
Even employee participation, engagement and satisfaction could be achieved, and this would favourably impact retention and employee morale. Many of today's employees tend to be socially and environmentally conscious and prefer to be actively involved in the betterment of the planet.
Therefore, those companies with genuine CSR initiatives may also be able to attract even more talent than those companies which may not be so CSR focused.
Good CSR initiatives by their own virtue and of an altruistic nature may push business decision makers into rethinking their existing practices regarding how their employees are hired and managed; the sourcing of products, supplies, and components; and how to deliver more value to their customers.
Well informed customers are increasingly avoiding environmentally irresponsible business entities. The old era of the "greed is good" mentality is long gone.
CLIMATE CHANGE: A PRIMARY DRIVER OF CSR
Climate change and the adverse impact it is having is already a major challenge across the globe in differing levels of intensity.
Such adverse effects of climate change have already manifested themselves in terms of depletion of the ozone layer, increase in global temperatures, acid rain, extended fires, melting ice caps, rise in sea level and other extreme events.
These alarming events certainly call for urgent and unified action at a local and global level.
The developed nations with large industrial facilities and manufacturing entities have already experienced the threat from climate change and now their own policy-makers have made the mitigation of the adverse effects from solid waste contamination and carbon gas emissions from industrial plants on people and the planet, a vital priority.
It is unfortunate that it's the developing countries that are most vulnerable to the threats from climate change and this is further complicated by the fact that these poorer countries cannot really do much to mitigate such threats because they are already overburdened from their own existing challenges of poverty, disease, and rampant corruption.
It has become common knowledge that, decades of unmonitored, harmful, and reckless behaviour by businesses is the primary cause of this global crisis. Accordingly, it is no longer an option for business entities to place serious focus on CSR and environmental responsibility.
Environmental responsibility as a vital component of CSR
One of the primary facets of CSR is environmental responsibility and this focuses on the understanding that corporations should act in as environmentally friendly a way as possible. Under this approach of "environmental friendliness", businesses try to embrace environmental responsibility and they may accomplish it by various actions, such as reducing pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, plastic product usage, water usage and general waste.
At the same time, they may also increase their reliance on renewable energy sources, sustainable resources as well as recycled materials. A business may also decide to go above and beyond and become even more proactive by planting trees, funding external research that may lead to greener and eco friendliness and also by donating to similar and related causes.
An important point to note is that environmentally focused CSR can also lead towards a company becoming more efficient, cost effective and profitable.
There are genuine and real commercial advantages of environmentally focused CSR because it can reduce business risk, provide many opportunities for cost savings and of course, improve reputation.
Easily and simply initiated energy efficiency measures can directly lead to making commercially favourable differences to the overall business. Increases in revenues may also be achieved because nowadays, many highly conscious customers actively choose to only purchase from environmentally responsible businesses.
The emergence of the CSO
Over the last 2 decades or so, many companies have started to make the environment a priority while conducting their core business operations and this has led to the creation of a critical position within those companies' executive branch.
A sustainability officer or chief sustainability officer (CSO) is exactly such an executive within a business enterprise whose duty it is to analyse and forecast a company's future outlook, current stability status and environmental impact.
This officer will set goals, policies, and objectives to ensure that the company maintains or exceeds productivity and profitability but also at the same time, it meets or exceeds the requirements of its environmental policy.
The CSO generally reports directly to the CEO of the company or sometimes to an executive management committee. The position of a CSO requires a person who is going to be dedicated to reducing the company's carbon footprint and be in or above regulatory compliance requirements set by the government.
Such a position is multi-dimensional, and it provides the person the opportunity to be directly involved at almost every level of production and value addition. The emergence and acceptance of a CSO as a required executive position within a company further shows how serious businesses have become in their goal to become much more environmentally friendly.
Note of caution to the public
Although the CSR initiatives and actions being taken by companies to become more environmentally friendly are noteworthy and deserving of praise, policy makers, regulators and especially the public should also be wary of superficial programs that are classified as "green" on the outside but in reality, might actually be designed to be commercially beneficial.
Such gimmicks and schemes have little or no beneficial impact on the environment but are primarily designed to be a marketing tool to mislead and give the impression that such business entities are trying to be environmentally conscious.
Therefore, it is recommended to be especially wary of over-hyped, so called green initiatives by companies which may utilise the media to impress the public on being environmentally focused.
True environmentally beneficial initiatives need to be proven and should have actual and measurable impacts backed by facts and figures which disclose the carbon footprint.
The author is a partner at PwC Bangladesh. The views expressed in this article are his own.