Comparing the Csr Activities in the Cosmetic Industry

The paper compares the corporate social activities of some of the biggest names in the cosmetic industry such as L"Oreal, Proctor and Gamble and Estee Lauder. The aim is to evaluate which of these companies have implemented CSR as part of the operations . It also reviews how their CSR activities affect their customers. labour relations, the community and the environment. It uses the best practice methods to compare each of their activities in order to see how each fares in the different CSR sectors. While each company has its own goals in CSR they do have commonalities and so a comparison does have meaning in that there are certain goals and objectives that can be used to evaluate these CSR activities. Each company comes out differently in different fields of their CSR activities and so affect the companies profile differently. While L'oreal has a gamut of CSR goals their animal testing has overshadowed their other CSR objectives. Estee Lauder fares better than L'Oreal in that it does not practise animal testing. Proctor and Gamble too has got its own shortcomings in that its waste management needs further improvements. Thus the cosmetic industry need to improve themselves further in order to really say they are effectively implementing CSR as it should be. Sustainability is one key word that they all need to implement in their CSR goals as whatever CSR activities undertaken should be sustainable in the long run. Any short term objectives will eventually peter out and flounder in waste waters as they will not hold up to close scrutiny by the international community. CSR objectives should be genuinely altruistic and not just for promotional reasons. They must also not be based on profitability alone as the bottom linhe is not the best base on which to build CSR strategies, All in all cosmetic companies need to evaluate in depth what drives their plans for CSR? Is it profits, altruism or the real need to do the right thing the right way? If companies