Corporate Social Responsibility – Climate Change and Global Warming
In a highly competitive business environment where differentiating products and services seems to be getting tougher by the day, it requires innovation, not just to excel but even to survive. Companies are thinking hard for that extra edge that would make them reach out to the customer and stay there entrenched in their minds. If you are a business that wants to make your brand reverberate with consumers, you need to latch on to a bandwagon that is of a mass appeal but one that hasn’t had too many players on it – and hence, offers room in it for you to make your mark and seal your place. I’m talking of Global Warming, of course.
Many companies have taken different routes to contribute their two cents to the issue of climate change and global warming. It is universally accepted fact that businesses and industries are more worried about their own stakes rather than the society. However, the missing part in the equation is that society is the biggest stake holder in business and businesses need to take the society into serious consideration if they are really concerned about “their own stakes.” Wal-Mart, for instance, has gone ahead with its “Day-light Harvesting” measures that lead to a significant drop in lighting requirements in its stores and hence results in huge energy savings.
What can a company do apart from being responsible in its own right? Perhaps, it can extend its responsibility to stake holders – may be, the marketing channel. If a consumer goods manufacturing firm, say, P&G, has taken efforts at its end to be socially responsible and a good corporate citizen, it could form a team that communicates its message of corporate social responsibility to its distribution channels and partners. The “Environment” Team could, perhaps, help all the players in the company’s distribution chain to adapt measures that would contribute to the idea of countering global warming. Perhaps, P&G cold some up with an environmentally clean waste disposal plan that it could help its distributors, wholesalers and retailers implement in full measure.
There are players in the supply chain that behemoths like P&G and Wal-Mart would have a good rapport with and control over. If these industry leaders take up the task of spreading the cheer, issues of global warming, carbon emission and climate change could be squarely addressed along with the companies gaining a clear marketing edge with increased brand value and positive consumer perceptions.
You’re absolutly right, every company should be doing this, they should have been doing this years ago. It’s not about saving carbon, it’s about reducing costs and increasing share value; But lets spin to the public as a way to save the planet.