Thanks to the Internet and social media marketing, consumers keep up with the companies they like more frequently. They are able to interact with these companies on a personal level. For consumers, this makes companies feel more like friends. Of course, consumers don’t want to make friends with people who have low ethical standards, which is why corporate social responsibility is more important than ever.
What Is Corporate Social Responsibility?
Corporate social responsibility is best viewed as a self-regulation that companies put into their own business models. The goal of such a regulation is to ensure that the company is following international norms and keeping high ethical standards. Most of these regulations center around the idea of companies actively embracing responsibility to create a better environment for stakeholders, employees, customers and communities. While this term was first used in the 1960s, it wasn’t until consumers could activity follow companies on the Internet that most of them began to take notice of what companies do and don’t do.
Sustainability
There are lot of different ways that companies can go about dealing with corporate social responsibility, one of which is sustainability. With more and more people worried about the state of the planet and its natural resources, consumers love to get behind companies that are doing their part to keep the world safe. Sustainability can refer to a company that is producing its own energy via solar panels or is actively looking for ways to rebuild the natural resources that it uses. An example of this is a logging company that is involved in the planting of new forests. The company is replacing the natural resources that it’s using.
Outcome of Using This Kind of Business Model
While not all businesses believe that corporate social responsibility helps them, other experts disagree. Studies show that these kinds of regulations usually lead to more engaged employees and higher growth rates. It can even lead to higher stock values for companies. Being viewed positively by a community is never a bad thing for a company. Since communities are the consumers who buy goods and services, it’s best to always look good in their eyes.
Some businessmen, like Sukanto Tanoto, focus greatly on corporate social responsibility. They want to do their part to ensure that their companies are viewed positively by the general public. While some argue that corporate social responsibility is nothing more than a window dressing to make a company look good, others say that it’s the ethnically right thing to do, and consumers respond to that.