Corporate social responsability. Being Green in Business. The Top Business Schools for Eco-Entrepreneurs. Building a Sustainable Brand -- One Thoughtful Step at a Time. A year of expansion has taught Kayce White the importance of thoughtful growth for her sustainable home products company. In December 2011, Kayce White began selling her handmade, all-natural cleaning products at craft fairs around Brooklyn, N.Y. Within a year, her company, HAVEN Sustainable Home Goods, scrambled to fulfill the company’s first major order: About 16,000 units for home décor retailer West Elm, whose executive she had met at a fair.
Today, HAVEN sells its still-handmade cleaning products online, through West Elm and at about 30 retailers—mostly boutiques—nationwide. Gross sales climbed 400 percent year-over-year in the first nine months of 2013, and White says deals with larger, nationwide retailers are in the works. Entrepreneur.com recently spoke with White about lessons she’s learned while expanding her business in recent months, as well as goals for the coming year. Lesson #1: Be selective about where you sell. Lesson #2: Listen to your customers. Image credit: HAVEN. Businesses Find Benefits in Going Green. Incentives to go green have moved way beyond lowering utility bills. "Cost savings are evolving into revenue generation," says Lauren Kelley Koopman, a director for PwC's Sustainable Business Solutions practice.
"Sustainability is next-generation business thinking because it creates value, attracts customers, retains employees and improves capital and funding. " In 2012, an Office Depot tracking poll found 61 percent of small businesses were trying to go greener, while 70 percent anticipated going green over the next two years.
If you're still on the fence, consider how these four companies are energizing their bottom lines. Reclaiming throwaways Launched in 2004 near Albany, Georgia, Enviro-Log manufactures fire logs made from the waxed cardboard boxes that transport produce. "We began by marketing the green attributes of recycling and recovery of waxed products," says founder Ross McRoy. But he found that people wouldn't pay a premium for green without personal benefits. Joanna L. Sustainable business. Sustainable business, or green business, is an enterprise to be that has minimal negative impact on the global or local environment, community, society, or economy—a business that strives to meet the triple bottom line.
Often, sustainable businesses have progressive environmental and human rights policies. In general, business is described as green if it matches the following four criteria: It incorporates principles of sustainability into each of its business decisions.[1]It supplies environmentally friendly products or services that replaces demand for nongreen products and/or services.[1]It is greener than traditional competition.[1]It has made an enduring commitment to environmental principles in its business operations.[1] A sustainable business is any organization that participates in environmentally friendly or green activities to ensure that all processes, products, and manufacturing activities adequately address current environmental concerns while maintaining a profit. 1. 2. Ethical consumerism. Ethical consumerism (alternatively called ethical consumption, ethical purchasing, moral purchasing, ethical sourcing, ethical shopping or green consumerism) is a type of consumer activism that is based on the concept of dollar voting.
It is practiced through 'positive buying' in that ethical products are favoured, or 'moral boycott', that is negative purchasing and company-based purchasing.[1] The term "ethical consumer", now used generically, was first popularised by the UK magazine the Ethical Consumer, first published in 1989.[2] Ethical Consumer magazine's key innovation was to produce 'ratings tables', inspired by the criteria-based approach of the then emerging ethical investment movement.
Basis[edit] Global morality[edit] An electric wire reel reused as a center table in a Rio de Janeirodecorationfair. Accordingly, ability is required and purchasing for vanity or status is abhorred and shunned. Spending as morality[edit] Growing diverse use of the term[edit] Positive buying[edit] Social responsibility. Social responsibility is an ethical theory that an entity, be it an organization or individual, has an obligation to act to benefit society at large. Social responsibility is a duty every individual has to perform so as to maintain a balance between the economy and the ecosystems.
A trade-off may[citation needed] exist between economic development, in the material sense, and the welfare of the society and environment. Social responsibility means sustaining the equilibrium between the two. It pertains not only to business organizations but also to everyone whose any action impacts the environment.[1] This responsibility can be passive, by avoiding engaging in socially harmful acts, or active, by performing activities that directly advance social goals. Student social responsibility[edit] Student social responsibility is the responsibility of every student for his/her actions. Corporate social responsibility[edit] Emerging normative status of social responsibility[edit] See also[edit]
The Benefits of Corporate Social Responsibility - Corporate Counsel. Business Case for CSR - Corporate Social Responsibility. Corporate social responsibility is about the integration of social, environmental, and economic considerations into the decision-making structures and processes of business. It is about using innovation to find creative and value-added solutions to societal and environmental challenges. It is about engaging shareholders and other stakeholders and collaborating with them to more effectively manage potential risks and build credibility and trust in society. It is about not only complying with the law in a due diligent way but also about taking account of society’s needs and finding more effective ways to satisfy existing and anticipated demands in order to build more sustainable businesses. Ultimately, it is about delivering improved shareholder and debtholder value, providing enhanced goods and services for customers, building trust and credibility in the society in which the business operates, and becoming more sustainable over the longer term.
Improved Reputation and Branding. Benefits of CSR - CSR & MANAGEMENT. According to a survey published in 2008 by “ Economist Intelligence Links (Canada)”, carried out with 1200 managers from everywhere in the world, and who intended to benefit from the implementation of strategies and policies in the field from the RSE, the six principal greater advantages mentioned were: - capacity to attract new customers, - a greater value for the shareholders, - an increased profitability, - better capacity to manage the risks, - products and processes of better quality and, - capacity to recruit first choice employees. But there are still other advantages according to us. On a graph In are represented part of the interactions between the various departments in the company. Corporate social responsibility.
Climate Change Adaptation and Corporate Strategy. Corporate Strategy On the boardroom agenda, most organisations will now be discussing issues around environmental impact, climate change adaptation and sustainability. Your business may have strategies and policies in place. There might be posters on the walls charting performance or advertising the next initiative. However, you might want reassurance that you are doing the right things, or quite simply, you might still be searching for a roadmap. At WSP our worldwide team will be able to relate to your specific position and work collaboratively with you to shape, implement and track the most appropriate environmental or sustainability strategy for your business. Explore this part of our website and we’ll explain: We also deliver knowledge management through highly visual and user-friendly Web 2.0 tools. > Use our directory to find what you’re looking for The importance of sustainability How do you measure the importance of sustainability across the value chain in your business?
Bench-marks.org / home. Corporate Social Responsibility in SMEs. Natural Resource Management Work. Shareholders v stakeholders: A new idolatry. THE era of “Jack Welch capitalism” may be drawing to a close, predicted Richard Lambert, the head of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), in a speech last month. When “Neutron Jack” (so nicknamed for his readiness to fire employees) ran GE, he was regarded as the incarnation of the idea that a firm's sole aim should be maximising returns to its shareholders. This idea has dominated American business for the past 25 years, and was spreading rapidly around the world until the financial crisis hit, calling its wisdom into question.
Even Mr Welch has expressed doubts: “On the face of it, shareholder value is the dumbest idea in the world,” he said last year. In an article in a recent issue of the , Roger Martin, dean of the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, charts the rise of what he calls the “tragically flawed premise” that firms should focus on maximising shareholder value, and argues that “it is time we abandoned it.” Ethical consumerism. An Opposing View on Corporate Social Responsibility. The Economist's Matthew Bishop believes corporate social responsibility programs are bad for both businesses and under-developed communities. by Manda Salls In a day that celebrated social responsibility and corporate virtue, one speaker offered a counter view by calling such programs "a complete fig leaf" and saying they can do more harm than good.
Matthew Bishop, business editor of The Economist, said company social responsibility initiatives could diminish shareholder returns, distract business leaders from their focus, and often allow companies to continue bad behavior in the shadows. "Are companies actually socially irresponsible? I think the overwhelming message is that they are not," said Bishop at the 5th Annual Social Enterprise Conference, held March 6 at Harvard Business School.
In the end, pressure put on businesses by non-governmental organizations and other advocates to create social as well as financial benefit may have the opposite effect of what is intended. Effects of Bad Corporate Social Responsibility: Aftermath of a Corporate Citizenship Campaign Gone Wrong | Suite101.com. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) or corporate citizenship entails companies behaving in a socially responsible manner, and dealing with other business parties who do the same. With growing public awareness and demand for socially responsible businesses, it is little wonder that companies of today take corporate social responsibility into account when planning future socially responsible business operations. When a CSR campaign goes awfully wrong and backfires on a company, what are some of the effects? Bad CSR is Bad Publicity Companies that appear to be socially responsible by promulgating environment saving or environmental sustainability and, at the same time, being allegedly tangled in an illegal socially irresponsible activity is a tremendous message to send out to the stakeholders including consumers and investors.
The effect of such CSR scandals is that credibility and the reputation of the company are undoubtedly badly damaged. Bad CSR leads to Legal Troubles. Business ethics. Business ethics (also corporate ethics) is a form of applied ethics or professional ethics that examines ethical principles and moral or ethical problems that arise in a business environment. It applies to all aspects of business conduct and is relevant to the conduct of individuals and entire organizations.[1] History[edit] Business ethical norms reflect the norms of each historical period. As time passes norms evolve, causing accepted behaviors to become objectionable.
Business ethics and the resulting behavior evolved as well. The term 'business ethics' came into common use in the United States in the early 1970s. Firms started highlighting their ethical stature in the late 1980s and early 1990s, possibly trying to distance themselves from the business scandals of the day, such as the savings and loan crisis. Overview[edit] Business ethics reflects the philosophy of business, one of whose aims is to determine the fundamental purposes of a company. Functional business areas[edit] Describing CSR has five components. CSR & Sustainability in 2012: 5 Trends. The future of sustainability reporting will be plural, bespoke and continuous | Guardian Sustainable Business. It is universally agreed that large companies should somehow report on non-financial matters: last year more than 3,000 did so by means of a corporate responsibility (CR) or sustainable development (SD) report. But ask the questions "why?
" and "how? " and things become less clear. Are they intended to tell shareholders about the fuzzier types of risk that lie over the horizon? Or should they be an honest disclosure to civil society of the company's global footprint? Should they make employees feel proud to work here? Or are they a document of record capturing impact data in forensic detail? The answer – for most companies, at least – is all of the above. The practice of SD reporting may be widespread, but discussion with users or even those who write them suggests that it has not yet evolved to its final state. Acona has undertaken a careful review, sponsored by global brewer SABMiller, aiming to understand how the best companies will report on SD in ten years time. MVO - PPP Social Responsibility.
The Benefits of Corporate Social Responsibility - Corporate Counsel. DJSI - Dow Jones Sustainability Index. SAM - Sustainability Asset Management. What BP could teach you about social media smarts. Home » Editor's Comment, Training An interesting new ranking arrived in my in-box Thursday morning grading the most social-savvy FTSE 100 companies. In the top 10 were plenty of brands you’d expect – Marks and Spencer, Burberry, Unilever and Intercontinental Hotels. Also making the cut was Big Oil. Improbably, both BP and Royal Dutch Shell had cracked the top 6 of the FTSE 100 Social Media Index. If you had told me a year ago that BP had cracked anybody’s list of socially committed brands, I’d have asked you how much petrol you’d been sniffing. We all remember the battering it got in the spring of 2010 during the Deepwater Horizon tragedy.
To be sure, the Deepwater Horizon tragedy has forever changed BP’s corporate psyche. Learn from the digital pioneers, brands like Coca-Cola, Carnival Cruises, Whole Foods, Vodafone and scores of others. . - Bernhard Warner co-founder, SMI. Canada launches CSR website for extractive industries. TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – The Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM), in partnership with the government and other stakeholders, has set up a website to help mining, oil and gas companies based in the country and operating abroad meet their social and environmental responsibilities.
“This new website will be a one-stop shop with the latest information on corporate social responsibility rules, laws and best practices,” said Canadian Minister of International Trade and Minister for the Asia-Pacific Gateway Stockwell Day. “It will also feature timely, practical information and advice on foreign countries, local networks and relevant experiences of Canadian companies, civil society and other stakeholders operating abroad,” he said in a statement. The site is hosted by the CIM and was developed in consultation with the federal government, industry, civil society, academia, indigenous representatives and expert practitioners.
Edited by: Liezel Hill. Mining, People and the Environment - Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Rporate Social Responsibility does more harm than good | | Independent Battle of Ideas Blogs. Benefits of CSR - CSR & MANAGEMENT. Stock Values Rise When Companies Disclose "Green" Information, UC Davis Graduate School of Management Study Finds.
How to Evaluate Corporate Social Responsibility. Business Case for CSR - Corporate Social Responsibility. Balanced score card plus. From shareholder to stakeholder capitalism. Shareholders v stakeholders: A new idolatry. An Opposing View on Corporate Social Responsibility. Balanced score card plus. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) | Current issues. IBM study highlights the commercial benefits of CSR : greentelecomlive. Corporate Governance Codes and Principles in Bulgaria. Presentation_of_Our_Common_Future_to_UNEP.pdf (application/pdf-Objekt) Corporate Social Responsibility in SMEs. Corporate social responsibility. Effects of Bad Corporate Social Responsibility: Aftermath of a Corporate Citizenship Campaign Gone Wrong | Suite101.com. Factoring sustainability in IPO planning.
Bench-marks.org / home. Four Reasons NGOs and Non-Profits Should Publish Sustainability Reports. Corporate Responsibility + Social Media - Are They Aligned in Your Organization. Home - CSR Europe. CSR News Europe - the latest news and reports from CSR practitioners. United Nations Global Compact. Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy. CSR Policy | Simply CSR. ISO Social Responsibility. GRI Level C Report Template. Guide to Sustainability Reporting (Australia) Global Reporting Initiative. What is CSR? 4 examples of corporate social responsibility done right. Corporate social responsibility. NGI en ISO26000. 2012 Global 100: The Definitive Corporate Sustainability Benchmark.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) - Sustainable and responsible business - Enterprise and Industry. Our Future Planet. Calculate and offset your carbon footprint. I change sustainable.