Blog Eight: CSR

Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is seen within a company that understands that their business impacts on more than just internal relations and focuses on issues outside them and develops ways in which to ensure decisions they make will have a positive impact on the wider world.

According to Mullins (2010), CSR is a concept that influences how an organisation should run and behave, based on many different factors including ethics, society, social, technical and the environment, all of which have an impact on the business.

CSR involves going a step further than just meeting legal requirements, therefore some organisations may choose not to have a large corporate responsibility, whereas others will ensure it is a big part of their business and the way they operate. Furthermore, some organisations may only include CSR into their operations because they feel pressured by public opinion of the topic or because their competitors are doing so.

After carrying out both primary and secondary research, including research using the FTSE4GOOD index, into companies that display CSR within the operation of their business I have discovered that the Kellogg’s Company see CSR as a way of life and largely demonstrate it within the running of their business.

The Kellogg’s company are so passionate and determined to prove their involvement in CSR they have a section on their website specifically dedicated to explaining to their customers what they are doing within the company and the way it is run to demonstrate this. Corporate Social Responsibility will vary for different organisations and between different countries and it is therefore important for a company like Kellogg’s that trades globally to ensure CSR is implemented with the understanding of these differences.

After reading the reports on the company’s CSR, I have discovered a number of examples including:

1)

As the BBC increasly report on the matter of obesity and the increase across the UK and USA in recent years.

“Obesity is a global issue, that requires global solutions.” (BBC News, 2011)

As a global distributor Kellogg’s Company’s have seen it their responsibility to get involved within the campaign to help obesity worldwide; the company have revised the ingredients within their products to ensure they are as healthy as possible. For example they reduced the amount of sugar and sodium within their products. This modification to ingredients will continue to develop to ensure it keeps up with the growing changes within the community of its consumers. They also set up programmes within communities to educate children on physical health, fitness and nutrition in order to further help promote healthier lifestyles and the knowledge to achieve this.

2)

Kellogg’s believe that their dedication to employing a diverse, skilled and talented workforce also reflects their social responsibility. Based on their consumer demographics, Kellogg’s aim to employ people in relation to this, who have knowledge of the local community. This helps provide jobs for the local community.

3)

Corporate social responsibility largely includes the local environment and the environment as a whole and therefore environmental responsibility is another aspect of CSR that the Kellogg’s company are continually working towards within all elements of the organisation, from the product development through to distribution of the product. Their ambition is to persist with increasing the amount of recycled material they use within their packaging and also changing any currently non-recyclable materials they use for alternatives that can be recycled. This kind of change could be extremely costly for the company, however the point of CSR is for the company to make these changes in spite of any negative financial impact it may have on the business.

Overall, Kellogg’s demonstrate a number of different ways in which they support and value their corporate social responsibility both locally and globally, which is vitally important for a multi-national organisation to consider when developing their responsibilities if they are going to be seen as effective or relevant.  

References:

BBC News. (2011) Obesity: The Story so far. [online]. Available from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health/ {accessed: March 2012}

Kellogg Co. (2012) Corporate responsibility. [online]. Available from: www.kelloggcompany.com/corporateresponsibility.aspx {assessed: March 2012}

Mullins, L.J. (2010) Management & organisational behaviour. ninth edition. Essex: Pearson Education Limited.