Social Responsibility

Questions: In research one company that claims implementation of ecologically sustainable policies and actions. You may use the organisation that you used in Assessment 2 (Group Presentation) or you may choose another. Your report should be structured as follows; Note, you do not need to write a table of contents, an introduction or conclusion but you do need a reference list at the end. 1. Using the example of the chosen company, assess the 3 Corporate Social Responsibility factors that influence corporate activities of your chosen company in the area of ecological sustainability. They are: economic, ethical and discretionary (week 3 reading) 2. Based on Readings (Weeks 1 to 10), design a sustainability plan for that company (for example you can focus on clean technology, sustainability vision, pollution prevention, product stewardship, etc). While creating the plan remember to include aims, objectives, strategies, tactics and evaluation. If the company already has a clear sustainability portfolio, analyse it according to the above criteria and suggest possible improvements for each. 3. Examine the possible advantages and difficulties in integrating your sustainability portfolio into the companys strategy. Answers: Part 1 Ecological Sustainability is defined as the capacity or the potential of the biosphere for meeting the requirements as well as the demands of the present generation without hindering future generations from being capable of meeting their demands (Borland et al., 2014). It means that utilizing the natural resources in the short-term wisely so that these particular resources are present in the long-term (McWilliams 2015). It also relies on the point that human beings have the capability for exhausting the natural resources. Corporate social Responsibility has a huge impact on the ecological sustainability of an organization (Holme and Watts 2012). It is the form of corporate self-regulation that is incorporated in a business model of a certain company. Tesco is the British merchandise as well as multinational grocery retailer (Crowther and Aras 2012). On the other hand, Tesco is the third biggest retailer in all over the globe as per their earned profits. There are several factors of c orporate social responsibility that can influence the corporate activities of a particular organization in the area of ecological sustainability (Lindgreen and Swaen 2014). These factors are Ethical Consumerism, Market forces and globalization, social awareness and education, ethics training as well as laws and regulation. In case of Tesco, three major factors of corporate social responsibility among the above mentioned factors such as Economic, Ethical as well as Discretionary factors mainly influence the corporate activities of Tesco in terms of ecological sustainability (Portney 2015). Economic factor or the responsibilities resided in the definition that refers to the expectation of the society that a particular company would manufacture services as well as goods those are desired as well as needed by the customers and sell those services and goods as well at a very reasonable and affordable price. It is a very common as well as the one of the most crucial factors of corporate social responsibility (Bassen, Jastram and Meyer 2015). In case of Tesco, this particular retail organization relies more on providing the great service with an affordable price to their global customers all over the world. In the aspect of globalization, Tesco believe in maintaining ecological sustainability (Cadbury 2016). However, there were some issues faced encountered in the Corporate Social Responsibility policy of the organization in terms of economical aspect. As per the Greenpeace report, the Tesco supermarket was selling vegetables with harmful as well as illegal pesticides with c omparatively high price. Hence, such economical aspect of the sale of their products has resulted in the occurrence of some critical issues in terms of maintaining ecological sustainability (Ness 2012). On the other hand, ethical factor is another very crucial factor that can affect the corporate social responsibility of a particular organization (Suyanto 2016). Most importantly, as a corporate social responsibility factor, ethical has a great impact on the maintenance of the ecological sustainability. In this particular scenario, a very crucial factor is that without establishing a proper awareness in the social aspect it would not be possible for any organization to the ecological sustainability to the customers (Pedersen 2015). Therefore, Tesco has followed a significant step in order to build a proper ecological sustainability. On the other hand, in the aspect of ethical consumerism or the discretionary factor of corporate social responsibility, customer can have an expectation regarding the products that only have a minimal impact of environment but the products those are manufactured as well as sourced in ways that help actually for tackling the environmental challenges. With the help of the proper and strict implementation of several important rules as well as regulations can help an organization to ensure the ecological sustainability in terms of Corporate Social Responsibility (Preuss 2013). Tesco has continued for recognizing the climate as the most crucial environmental threat that is faced by people all around the globe. Therefore, Tesco has followed the UKs 2010 Climate Change Act in order to make an ambitious commitment for becoming a zero carbon business by 2050 as well as also have fixed the targets of medium-term 2020. Tesco mainly focuses on the minimization of the emission of Carbon Dioxide per square foot of their supermarkets or the retail stores as well as the distribution centres against a 2006 / 7 baselines by 50 % (Brown 2013). On the other hand, this organization has also focused on the minimization of the CO2 per case of the products those are delivered against a baseline of 2011 / 12 by 25 %. Part 2 Aims The sustainability plans of an organization are the planning built by the government of a particular country or an organization or achieving objectives that the foster financial sustainability as well as environmental community (Korschun, Bhattacharya, and Swain 2014). These plans simply determine the objectives those are specific to the company in question. The major aim of this sustainability plan is to establish the guidelines in order to achieve as well as measure the impact of these particular goals. This sustainability plan is aimed to analyze the sustainability portfolio of Tesco according to the several criteria such as globalization and market place, social awareness and education as well as laws and regulation in terms of Corporate Social Responsibility. On the other hand, the sustainability plan of Tesco is being designed by the retail organization. Most importantly, Tesco has implemented their sustainability plan in order to be engaged for achieving its objectives of sust ainability. This is because, this renowned and popular supermarket chain has committed for reducing its impact on the environment and in order to do this, Tesco set out some sustainability strategy that can recognize the environmental opportunities and risks in its supply chain. Therefore, this study is also aimed to recognize how Tesco is developing its sustainability strategy with the help of its supply chain and also the improvisation of the supply chain. Objectives Every company as well as the operations of every company are different and thus the implementation as well as the goals would be necessarily tailored to a particular company. Therefore, the objectives of the sustainability plan of Tesco reflect the kind of work or the kind of followed strategies, which Tesco operates. The major objective of the sustainability plan designed by Tesco is to focus on the process through which Tesco is implementing its strategy of sustainability through the supply chain. In addition, another crucial objective of this sustainability portfolio of Tesco is to portray how Tesco has committed for reducing its impact on the environment and for doing this what strategy has been considered by the organization has also been aimed to be discussed in this sustainability plan of the organization. This particular sustainability plan is also aimed to discuss how Tesco is involving its suppliers for achieving its goals of sustainability. Therefore, this particular susta inability plan has another important objective to improve the sustainability strategies considered by this Tesco in the sustainability portfolio. Strategies By keeping an aim of increasing ecological sustainability, Tesco has made a commitment for reducing its impact on the worldwide environment as well as for doing this organization has also set out a strategy of sustainability that can recognize the opportunities as well as risks in its supply chain (Cheng, Ioannou and Serafeim 2014). Most of the environmental risks are the systematic challenges that the entire industry has to face such as the deforestation as well as the climate change. Tesco is mainly concerned about the reduction of the carbon emissions (Cheng, Ioannou and Serafeim 2014). Based on this matter, Tesco is mainly concerned about following few specific sustainability strategies with help of making a perfect plan. On the other hand, Tesco has the knowledge that the organization has to work collaboratively with the industry bodies, NGOs, supplier partners as well as the other stakeholders for addressing these kinds of big issues. Tesco has already launched a support packag es series for its suppliers (Tesco 2016). On the other hand, in every category all of suppliers of Tesco such as electronics, clothing or bread suppliers are entitled for the membership of the platform of supplier innovation of Tesco that is the Tesco Supplier Network (Tesco 2016). Tesco fund this particular online platform as well as this organization is also aimed to help its suppliers for becoming more sustainable in the environment point-of-view (Servaes and Tamayo 2013). Furthermore, Tesco identifies that there is a requirement for the face-to-face sessions for enhancing the online activity as well as addressing the particular challenge (Tesco 2016). This retail organization has also brought 3Keel as well as ETANTE on the board for supporting this particular process and for helping run a series of events: One to one tailored support ongoing Smaller but more aimed sessions ongoing Larger Plenaries three held in 2015 so far Tactics Sustainability or the environmental sustainability can be often seen as a specialist, complex topic as well as out-of-reach for several suppliers. Tesco is very much passionate regarding changing the misconception as well as helping all the suppliers of the organization for unlocking the potential benefits that a more sustainable business can bring. One major element of making enable this is for having a strategy in place (Padin et al., 2014). As per the suppliers, they can get more advantage from an aimed session on refreshing or building the strategy of environmental sustainability (Tesco 2016). This particular event of sustainability plan would be started at the end of June or the beginning of June, for fitting diaries, and there is space for 15 suppliers. This sustainability plan would be continued for 10 weeks. Every single week is aimed to accomplish a certain activity that comes under the sustainability plan of that organization. Tesco would be running this particular session and would also be sharing their learning in this platform from the past roles of sustainability roles at the two major rival organizations such as Tesco as well as ASDA (Tesco 2016). Tesco would also has to take delegates through the major elements of developing few strategies those are relevant as well as convenient to their own business in a hands on way. Evaluation After implementing a sustainability plan, it is very important to evaluate how much the sustainability plan is effective for Tesco in terms of their corporate social responsibility policy. There are few places where some improvisations as well as improvements are required. First of all, there should be few effective implementations of rules and regulations. Now, in this recent era, Tesco has hard evidence of the place where it requires for focusing its attention for achieving outcomes (Werbach 2013). The organization as a consequence plans for making the initiatives of cutting carbon with the customers as well as the farmers a priority. It also intends for continuing the foot printing work of the dairy farm as well as expanding it towards the other livestock. It would also make a partnership with the branded suppliers for influencing customers and instigating personalized footprints of carbon for the customers (Tesco 2016). The view that is given by the sustainability portfolio of Te sco to the organization was even more essential, permitting it for seeing just how dominant agricultural inputs as well as the customer utilize are as well as presenting that just five commercial classifications form half total emissions. Part 3 Possible Advantages in integrating Sustainability Portfolio Nowadays, people have become more conscious regarding the sustainability fact of a particular product. Most of the people are aware of the issues of ecological sustainability. Therefore, they prefer the product of those organizations who maintain the ecological sustainability. Thus, Tesco has designed their sustainability portfolio in terms of maintaining their corporate social responsibility in order to get several advantages. Tesco intends to manage the sustainability with the help of the sustainability portfolio of the company for improving processes, pursuing growth as well as for adding value to their organizations rather than aiming on the reputation alone (Servaes and Tamayo 2013). Tesco has integrated actively the principles of sustainability into its business. Motivating and retaining employees, developing green products as well as saving energy, all of these factors help the organization for capturing value through the return on capital as well as growth. There are several advantages of the sustainability portfolio of the organization that can help Tesco to keep their reputation intact as well as to increase the rate of earning revenue. These are as follows: By implementing as well as integrating the measures and the goals of the sustainability portfolio into the project management process of Tesco, this organization can notice the enhanced market share as well as improved profits at the time of meeting the developing government as well as client requirements for the business practices those are more socially responsible. By improving the sustainability plan of Tesco, this particular retail organization can be able to gain huge competitive advantage in a global aspect. This is because, people would become more aware of the sustainability policies of Tesco as well as the convenience of the policies (Cheng, Ioannou and Serafeim 2014). The improvement of the sustainability portfolio of Tesco can be able to ensure several aspects in terms of the ecological sustainability such as the employee as well as the consumer health, environmental protection, respects for the human rights, fair trade and the protection of biodiversity (Korschun, Bhattacharya and Swain 2014). the sustainability portfolio of Tesco would also help the forward-thinking leaders to embed the goals of sustainability as well as the measures into their core processes of project management along with investing in the projects designed specifically for addressing societal or environmental needs. Difficulties in integrating Sustainability Portfolio Along with the advantages of improving the sustainability plan, there are few difficulties have to be faced by Tesco while integrating this particular sustainability portfolio to maintain a proper corporate social responsibility aspect for the company. The constraints are mainly formed in the area of the proper implementation of the strategies mentioned in the portfolio. Thus, in case of Tesco sustainability report, there are several cons or the difficulties gave to be faced by this organization while integrating this portfolio. these are as follows: If the goals of the sustainability portfolio become weak then it becomes as a whole a poison disaster for Tesco as well as for the sustainability policies in general. Very often it has been seen in this portfolio designed by Tesco, that presentation as well as the data collection is not meaningful, accurate as well as efficient (Schneider and Schmidpeter 2012). Therefore, the improvement of this particular sustainability portfolio becomes difficult for Tesco to be integrated. There is a less chance provided in this sustainability portfolio of Tesco for listening to the stakeholders as well as the clients while they give comments, suggestions or data verifications on the report (Ness 2012). Thus the scope of the improvement of the portfolio becomes short for Tesco. The guidelines mentioned in the sustainability portfolio should be followed by this portfolio (Cadbury 2016) However, it is often noticed that the Tesco has failed to do that. However, this organization has to be very careful in this matter. Therefore, the integration of the improvement of the sustainability portfolio of Tesco would be easy for the organization. Reference List Bassen, A., Jastram, S. and Meyer, K., 2015. Corporate social responsibility.Zeitschrift fr Wirtschafts-und Unternehmensethik (zfwu),6(2), pp.231-236. Borland, H., Ambrosini, V., Lindgreen, A. and Vanhamme, J., 2014. 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