Corporate Social Responsibility as everyday commitment

Social responsibility has been multi-culturally defined and qualified as an ethical or ideological theory in which entities such as governments and corporations, individuals and organizations take on a proactive stance in claiming responsibility for their roles in society and how their actions impact on this emergent school of thought.

The principle behind it is no longer a strange concept.

Here, a higher consciousness embraces the corporate stakeholder theory, where shareholders or stockholders are the owners of the company, the firm therefore has a binding duty to put their needs first. In a macro view, this means putting the interest of society at the forefront of each corporate vision and mission, being “socially responsible” so to speak, and therefore adding a socio-political level of consciousness to the corporate schema – making a company more organc, more human, even as globalization tries cultural barriers.

Arguments have been raised for and challenging this, praising humanitarian efforts and conversely seeing the publicized actions as promotional efforts to further capitalist interest and product viability in the local scenes. But really, does it matter?

A person who performs good karma (deeds) is always held in high esteem. In the make of public relations, the words og Rig Veda regarding good karma tanslated to good publicity. Yes, in advertising cost, any print area measured in square inches adds up to a positive review. But does it end there? Indeed, the one question foremost in our minds is how far corporate entities will go in sustaining these actions and if the same activities would have been pushed outside budgetary considerations.

Sol Luckman provides food for thought: Contrary to popular misconception, karma has nothing to do with punishment and award. It exists as part of our holographic universe’s binay or dualistic operating system only to teach us responsibility for our creations – and all things we experience are our creations.

We are responsible for the world when we take action – any action. Thus, the concept of social responsibility took on a life of its own. Corporate social responsibility became an organism of powerful meaning.

Worldwide organizations are embracing the holistic concept.

Locally, Petron has Project Hope (Helping Filipinos Overcome Poverty through Education) which focuses on providing a specialized learning program for the undeserved children and youth. They have also undertaken other initiatives on the environment, health and human services, and other advocacy and short-term projects. Regular medical missions, tree planting and reforestration activities, coastal clean-ups, motorist assistance, and air traffic programs.

San Miguel Corporation (SMC), aside from strongly implementing social development programs including Philippine General Hospital’s “Give-A-Life-Project,” actively contributes and is a member of the Corporate Network for Disaster Response and Operation Smile Philippines. Corporate Initiatives listed partnership projects in various locales. With Davao Brewery, they maintained a reforestration project in Mt. Talomo-Lipadas, Daval del Sur. In Mt. Kanlaon, Bago City, Negros Occidental, SMC worked with the Ilijan Upland Community Development Program to help market farmers produce on top of providing means to bring them to the city’s center of trade and commercial activity. Also, more than a hundred hectares of mangroves were reforested in Quezon Province; Samal Island, Davao; and Bago City, Negros Occidental.

In the United States, the Bon Appetit Management Company, which provides food service in 400 university and corporate cafes in 29 states worked with The Coalition of Immokalee Workers to spearhead the fight for more humane farm labor standards in Florida (April 2009). News networks have featured forsome time the plight of migrant workers apparently having been enslaved in Florida and federal civil rights officials have prosecuted seven slavery operations involving over 1,000 workers since 1997.

With more than 160,000 people employed in 49 countries, it is said that Accenture reduced its overall carbon emissions by 9 percent from fiscal year 2007 to fiscal year 2009 as part of its efforts toward good corpoate citizenship and targets to reduce emissions further, on a per employee basis, by 25 percent for its 2009 fiscal year, compared with its fiscal year 2007 baseline.

In June 2009, the American Cancer Society recognized the contribution of Walgreens (award of excellence), Abbott (employee giving), Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (employee management), Archer Daniels Midland (tobacco control) for encouraging employee engagement in the fight against cancer during the 2009 Corporate Impact Awards in Atlanta.

Also in June, PepsiCo Foundation and the United Nations World Food Programme announced a partnership to deliver food and relief to the most vulnerable communities around the globe; the action was prompted by last year’s global food crisis surge.

For their part, coca Cola executive joined key decision makers from Wal-Mart, MINI, Facebook Causes.com, Saatchi & Saatchi, Gaiam, eBay, Method, and Organic valley, among others, alongside Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability (LOHAS) and the Nutrition Capital Network in Boulder, Colorado to unite and expand the “green” marketplace by facilitating new relationships across diverse industries.

Fortunately, the efforts do not end here as listed. Churchill states quite succintly that responsibility is the price of greatness. Just imagine the humor in seeing economic crises as history if we all accounted for even a bit of responsibility. –Korinna Pia A. Saavedra, Corporate websites, CSRwire.com