Corporate Social Responsibility Analysis

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) demonstrates the company's responsibility for its impacts on stakeholders, the society as a whole, and the environment. Target's corporate social responsibility report well displays their commitment and how they actually act to make contributions to their stakeholders, society, and the natural environment. Considering high-quality and sustainable product as crucial, Target introduces its high standards for products in "Inspiring Wellness" section. Using UL Purview Platform powered by GoodGuide, and information from vendors, Target develops its own Sustainable Product Index (SPI) to assess products for sustainability and quality. According to Andrew Winston, Target scored 7000 products during 2015 using SPI, and the company certainly promoted the products with highest scores. However, in the retail industry, Walmart is actually more experienced with the sustainability evaluating system for products than Target. According to Walmart's website, Walmart launched its Sustainability Index in 2009 in collaboration with The Sustainability Consortium (TSC), and in its 2015 Global Responsibility report, Walmart claims that about 65% of goods that were sold in Walmart U.S. stores are covered by the Index. Although Target is not as experienced as Walmart for sustainability index, its painstaking efforts to provide customers with sustainable products are well illustrated by its handpicked sustainable product collection "Made to Matter", which launched in 2014. According to Target's CSR report, after only one-year development, Target realized $1 billion sales of products in the "Made to Matter" collection.

In Phil Wahba' s article, he states that Target relies on "Made to Matter" collection to promote itself as a "destination for wellness". I agree with his point because "Made to Matter" is Target's original product collection, which