Advantages and Disadvantages of Csr

Advantages of CSR:

“Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is not going to solve the world’s problems. That said, CSR is a way for companies to benefit themselves while also benefiting society.” (Reeves, 2012). CSR in general gives the corporation a sense of belonging to the society. Major companies are working on giving back the environment by creating campaigns that target major issues facing the world today. Some cases might seem unimportant, but in reality they are a major set-back if not treated fairly. An example would be the case of Haagen-Dazs and Honeybees. A weird topic I know, but honeybees play a major role in the global food chain. Without honeybees, pollination would not occur. This is a bad news for Haagen-Dazs since all its ingredients are natural, and with the huge decrease in the number of honeybees, Haagen-Dazs’ raw material was in danger. So the latter created a website and a social media campaign in order to raise awareness.

Implementing CSR in the company’s agenda has many advantages on the company as a while and on employees as individuals.

To begin with, cost saving is a primary advantage of CSR. The company can reduce its consumption of certain products which help in reducing its costs. For instance using less packaging or less papers in offices can reduce a lot the cost, as well as pollution that can result from over using certain goods.

“In 2008, Walmart ran an ad campaign designed to raise awareness about the environment and the product choices consumers could make” (Reeves, 2012). Customer engagement is another advantage since customers become aware to which products to buy in order to play a role, no matter how small, in the issues companies create. Customers tend to buy more environment friendly products or certain products which give back to the society. For example, Toms’ shoes created a campaign which is for every pair of tom’s bought; the company will donate another pair to the poor in Africa. This campaign gives the customer a sense of giving and his personal satisfaction of knowing that a person in need is getting helped by his simple gesture of buying a pair of Tom’s shoes.

“A 2011 sustainability study by MIT showed that sustainability, in the US at least, now plays a permanent part in 70% of corporate agendas” ( Fenn, 2013) .Companies are incorporating their giving back to the community with their employees. Employees can choose which charity to work with by casting a vote. This gives the employee a chance to choose where and which charity to help.

Some companies might use the fun factor. For example, Walt Disney’s trains run on biodiesel made with cooking oil from the resort’s hotels. This shows how efficient this change can be. Also, they created “Green Standard” for their employees which were highly effective since Disney is the workplace of more than 60,000 workers.