Corporate Social Responsibility
- Submitted by: madamara
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- Category: Politics: Moral Issues
- Date Submitted: 05/02/2011 03:06 PM
- Pages: 15
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FORTUNE
CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY (CSR) REPORTING BY SUPERMARKETS: BASED ON MARKS AND SPENCER (M&S)
INTRODUCTION
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) can be defined as “operating a business in a manner that meets or exceeds the ethical, legal, commercial and public expectations that society has of business.”
CSR is currently high on the agenda of many stakeholders. Governments, businesses and voluntary organisations are among the stakeholders pushing for change in the way things are done. Stakeholders are demanding ever higher levels of integrity from supermarkets and other businesses and this is set to increase. The fact that even consumers are now militant and informed and are demanding ethical, environmentally sound and sustainable ways of doing business shows that CSR is now a prominent and widespread issue to be taken seriously by business and governments.
The way the supermarkets conduct their business has huge environmental and social implications on customers, suppliers, employees, local communities and the environment and it is only fair that they do so with some accountability, transparency and integrity. The different stakeholder groups are now playing an active role in raising awareness about things like healthy foods, fair trade, community development and protecting the environment. They want the supermarkets to incorporate these to the way they do business. They want the supermarkets to be responsible, accountable and to report on the initiatives they took in the right direction. Having highlighted the awareness of today’s consumers and their demand for responsible retailing above, I now need to look at how retailers are responding to these demands. In doing this I chose Marks and Spencer because of its size and long standing reputation as a trusted retailer. My aim is to assess M & S’s CSR policies in terms of:
Government’s Food Industry Sustainability Strategy 2006.
The objectives are:
1. To assess the...
CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY (CSR) REPORTING BY SUPERMARKETS: BASED ON MARKS AND SPENCER (M&S)
INTRODUCTION
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) can be defined as “operating a business in a manner that meets or exceeds the ethical, legal, commercial and public expectations that society has of business.”
CSR is currently high on the agenda of many stakeholders. Governments, businesses and voluntary organisations are among the stakeholders pushing for change in the way things are done. Stakeholders are demanding ever higher levels of integrity from supermarkets and other businesses and this is set to increase. The fact that even consumers are now militant and informed and are demanding ethical, environmentally sound and sustainable ways of doing business shows that CSR is now a prominent and widespread issue to be taken seriously by business and governments.
The way the supermarkets conduct their business has huge environmental and social implications on customers, suppliers, employees, local communities and the environment and it is only fair that they do so with some accountability, transparency and integrity. The different stakeholder groups are now playing an active role in raising awareness about things like healthy foods, fair trade, community development and protecting the environment. They want the supermarkets to incorporate these to the way they do business. They want the supermarkets to be responsible, accountable and to report on the initiatives they took in the right direction. Having highlighted the awareness of today’s consumers and their demand for responsible retailing above, I now need to look at how retailers are responding to these demands. In doing this I chose Marks and Spencer because of its size and long standing reputation as a trusted retailer. My aim is to assess M & S’s CSR policies in terms of:
Government’s Food Industry Sustainability Strategy 2006.
The objectives are:
1. To assess the...