Corporate Social Responsibility Task

The partnership is employee owned (these employees atomic number 18 Often called members or partners) and so they state that their purpose is the happiness of all our members, through their worthwhile, satisfying trading in a successful subscriber line The next blood line searched was McDonalds which is the queen-sizedst global fast pabulum restaurant in the creation. It has over 34000 stores laid close to the world that serve around 68 million concourse a day (equivalent to the population of the K). McDonalds has often been criticized for its effect on the environment and its nodes due to its pocket-size caliber products.Its briny competition is KEF and Burger King although to combat this McDonalds offers a larger product upchuck with KEF mainly focusing on chicken and Burger King mainly religious offering burgers. To help labor their sustenance to children they use a clown mascot that they also use for their charities that victuals children e. G the Ronald McDon ald House charity which offers temporary homes for families with close relatives who argon in a distant hospital. The Final business researched was sorry which is owned by Wall-Mart, the largest private employer in the world and the second largest public reparation in the world. melancholy got its name from the merger of Associated Dairies & Farm Stores Limited and Acquits (a small chain of supermarkets) with the AS coming from Acquits and the DAD coming from Dairies. criminal has had assorted problems with false advertising in the past unremarkably due to showing items in adverts for sales that ar non included in the sale. SAD manufactures and sells its own range of c freshethes called George. SAD employs 175,000 employees and 565 stores in the ASK. Its mission statement is to be Britains best value retailer exceeding customer needs al behaviors. All of these organizations feed been put under insistency in recent years to act responsibly and show levelheaded corporate soci al responsibility. The main press on these businesses comes from squeeze groups which ar groups such as Greenback who put pressure on businesses who damage the environment. These groups force out bring on a secure effect on a business as they foundation use various protest methods to reduce the profits of a business. These methods include calling for boycotts, deterring ethical consumers, picketing and even suing the business.All these methods vex negative publicity for the equines which deters customers from divergence to the store as its actions may not follow their ethical beliefs. Negative publicity stern also affect share prices as this publicity can be an indicator that the profits of the business fall drop soon due to some of their customers beingness deterred. The main organization thrust researched that has been effected by this is McDonalds who has been tar stir uped by various environmental groups in the past and is now being seted by PETA who has d unmatche d investigations into McDonalds and has pay back up whom. Cruelty. Com which publicizes how McDonalds mistreats animals. This is likely to deter customers from going to McDonalds and cause it to lose a small amount of its market. Although it is being targeted negatively by some pressure groups, other groups confirm recently sat reed to us port its new-made CEO-friendly initiatives and employment strategies which has purifyd the companys word-painting a lot. another(prenominal) organization that has been effected negatively is SAD who bedevil been targeted by Labor piece of tail the Label and War on Want who take shown various suppliers of SAD to be underpaying change stateers.This would affect ethical consumers as they would be deterred from supporting SAD and its u pliers by buying their products and some may protest against SAD in other ship canal. Pressure groups can also help a business if it shows advancement in particular CAR fields. The washstand Lewis federation is the main business that Ive researched that has benefited from positive publicity from pressure groups as it has received various awards from pressure groups for having good suppliers and caring for the environment.One of their recent awards, the good pig award, allowed the company to advertise that they sourced their pork products from high welfare farms which would improver the likelihood hat an ethical consumer would leverage that product. Many of the Actions taken by pressure groups would not work without ethical consumers. Ethical consumers are people who purchase goods based partly on them being ethically right.An example of this is people who buy fair trade products which are often more than expensive than non-fair trade products but help support the producers of those products. These consumers are very important for the pressure groups as it can allow them to get customers to boycott certain products or retailers. This also allows pressure groups to influence the decis ions of a business as they can reduce the profits of a business or alternatively if the business is doing well in some aspect of CAR they can give them an award that will attract ethical consumers to them.An example of the power of ethical consumerism is that McDonalds has been forced to alter its view on the environment with it being connect to rainforests destruction and over packaging of products whereas now it has some of the best packaging in the fast food industry and has decreased its effect on the rainforests. The main manner ethical consumerism has affected SAD is through the reduces it sells with them now stocking a large range of fair-trade and free range products to encourage ethical consumers to go to SAD instead of its competitors.This has caused SAD to decrease its profit margin on these products as these products cost more for SAD to buy which may have lost them property for a short time but would increase their sales due to greater Customer retention. The John Le wis Partnership has benefited a lot from ethical consumerism with umteen of its products aimed at ethical consumers and a lot of its customers choosing to shop their because of their view on business.This allows them to maintain a good customer base as ethical consumers are likely to keep shopping at John Lewis Partnership stores so long as they continue to profess ethical decisions. Often the main way a business promotes it is being socially responsible is through its investments. This helps to maintain a good relationship with pressure groups and advertises the business to ethical consumers. An example of this is McDonalds who promote their investment into fuelling over 50% of their trucks with bodi little and continually researching ways to reduce their packaging waste.Most socially responsible investments made by a business have other benefits too such as the bodiless they make themselves which reduces fuelling costs and decreasing waste packaging means they dont have to buy a s a lot of the raw materials for the packaging. The John Lewis Partnership promotes its socially responsible actions a lot. An example of this is that it has invested into an awards program called the Waitress Supplier Awards which rewards suppliers for meliorate their environmental performance. This has helped Waitress improve its suppliers so that ethical groups will continue to support Waitress.This also advertises to consumers that Waitress are laborious to improve the CAR Of their suppliers and not just their stores. SAD gain substantial benefits from advertising its socially responsible actions. One way it has benefited is through better employment as it advertises its employment benefits, such as access to its skills academy, to gain a better standard of employees. It also benefits by advertising the various things it is doing for the topical anesthetic anesthetic biotic club, such as supporting a local athlete, which would help the local club see some of the good asp ects to having an SAD in their residential area.All 3 of the businesses I have researched have benefited from their positive CAR which has helped them grow. The John Lewis Partnership has benefited a lot from the good publicity it has received from various organizations that report on CAR to the extent that it has become the industries leader for ethical consumers. This has allowed their stores to offer their goods at a high price than their competitors as their customers are willing to pay more for an ethically sourced product.As they have a history of ethical consumerism they have been able to maintain customer loyalty as it is less keel for them to make an unethical business decision. John Lewis has also used its employment benefits to maintain a good work force with it freehanded its employees a large percentage of the profits (usually in the form of a bonus worth 2 months pay). These benefits increase employee loyalty and make the John Lewis Partnership a more attractive op tion for job seekers. This allows the stores to be more selective when employing new members of staff so that they can get the best person for the job.This also allows them to create a more diverse workforce so that they can arrive out bout different ways to market products towards people of a different age, culture, ethnicity, sex and background. McDonalds has benefited from the positive publicity from its socially responsible actions a lot because in the past many pressure groups have given McDonalds negative publicity on its effects on the environment, its packaging and its effects on the consumers health. Over recent years though it has publicise what it has done to combat these issues to such an extent that it has now won a lot of environmental awards.This has helped to increase its ethical consumer customer base and in twine increase its profits. The main area McDonalds has benefited from good CAR is in its recruitment. Due to McDonalds offering its employees a good range o f benefits it has been named one of the Auks top employers. This helps promote McDonalds to capability employees and helps retain employees which is essential for McDonalds as most Of their franchise owners are previous employees. SAD has benefited a lot though the loyalty of its customers. This is due to them maintaining a good price for their products while still doing a lot for their CAR.This has meant that the business has not had to invest in club cards which it says cost hundreds of millions of pounds and only reward people who can afford to spend the most. Instead it explains that it uses that property to reduce the cost oftener products across the board for everyone. This allows them to advertise that they have more products cheaper than Decos than Decos have of SAD. This draws in new customers and maintains customer loyalty as customers believe it is the best option for them to shop there. SAD have offered a lot of benefits to employees with cheaper stock offerings and v arious qualifications available.Corporate Social Responsibility taskOne thing it has done is source a lot Of its products from local suppliers e. G. All Waitress fresh chicken, yell and pork, bacon, duck and goose are sourced room the J which helps local communities as it increases the profits of the local suppliers and allows them to expand which allows them to increase their workforce. Increasing the suppliers workforce helps the community as it decreases unemployment evaluate and increases the amount of money that stays in the community.This is very important to local communities as usually 95% of a businesss income is taken away from the local community but by altering its supply methods and improving its employee bonuses John Lewis removes a lot less. Another way the John Lewis Partnership has had a positive partake on the coal community is through its employee bonuses which are substantially larger than most other supermarkets. This helps the local community as it gives the employees more disposable income which is likely to be spent in the local community.It also helps employees to maintain financial stability through the Christmas period which would help the community as there would not be as many community members in debt after Christmas. The John Lewis Partnership has also helped the local community through its community matters scheme which offers its employees the chance to work with the community on local projects. This combined with their investment of Ell million into the local community has benefited their local communities a lot.This helps the local community as it not only gives them the funds to make a change but access to a large workforce to get it done. The final way the John Lewis Partnership helps the local community is by using diverse recruitment methods which helps different parts of the local community to learn about each others cultures and helps people who would find it hard to get a job. An example of this is their elderly re cruitment which provides jobs to elderly people who normally would find it hard to get a job.This would also set an example for other business in the area and so increase diverse recruitment methods in other businesses. The John Lewis Partnership also has a negative impact on local communities as its Waitress products are often a higher price than other supermarkets which could cause problems for people with money troubles as they would not be able to afford as much. This may also cause a class divide in some areas as some would be financially able to shop at John Lewis or Waitress whereas other would not and so this may split the community.The John Lewis Partnership has also been linked to an increase in house rises as people are willing to pay more for a house fixed near a Waitress. This effect has been noticed by estate agents in areas that a Waitress has been built nearby with some claiming it increases house prices by up to 25%. This would affect people who want to move into t he area as they may find fewer houses in their budget. This would also affect the diversity of the local community as it would reduce the amount of people who have a lower income in the area.This would however have a positive impact on people already living in the area as their house value would increase. The final negative impact that Waitress has had is that in some communities it has caused transaction problems as people from the local area flock in to use the store. This would affect the environment as some of these people would have driven kick upstairs than normal so that they can use Waitress rather than a different store. This would also affect the local area which would become more engorged and would have to spend Moore to maintain the roads.Overall I recover that the John Lewis partnership is good for the local community as it offers the local community a range of high quality products and has advanced ethical consumerism a lot. Also the main negative impacts John Lewis has are difficult for them to change and they are still trying to improve on these effects such as offering a value range to make Waitress a more affordable option and looking to decrease its impact on congestion such as at its Guilford site which is located near a large junction they have paid for the council to improve the roads.McDonalds McDonalds is probably the most improved business I have researched as it has received a lot of negative publicity on its CAR choices in the past but is now trying to improve its public image. One way it has done this is by advertising its various fleeceable schemes that reduce the impact they have on the environment. The most visual form of this environmental change is their packaging which has been altered so it is now more perishable and smaller.This helps the local community as it makes it easier for the council to deal with any litter that is dropped by a customer and it reduces the amount of waste McDonalds contributes to the local land f ill. Another way McDonalds green schemes have helped the local community is that it has increased its local product sourcing. This decreases the air miles of he food and reduces the amount of money that is removed from the local community. This helps support local agriculture which is at threat due to other companies sourcing products from overseas.This also helps to support the local economy as a transnational corporation usually removes a lot of money from local communities and so the more money it spends on local produce the less impact it has on the local economy. McDonalds also helps the local community by bringing a lot of jobs to their community and hiring people with little or no experience which helps some members of the local community improve their ability to work. This also helps people in higher education as often McDonalds working hours are quite flexible and so they can work their without it affecting their education.The final way they are trying to help the local com munity is by decreasing the amount of litter found around the community. They are doing this by funding local council bins and putting litter bins outside of their restaurants. This helps the local community as it makes it a cleaner place and improves its image which would increase the amount of people who would want to visit the area. This also helps reduce the cost for the council when dealing with an areas litter problem. McDonalds has had substantial negative impacts on the local community as well.The main impact it has had is on the health of the local people as many of their best selling products are unhealthy and the products that are healthy have been criticized as they often do not appeal to their customer base. This is shown in a daily mail article called McDonalds shares fall as customers shun new healthier items on the menu that links recent price drops to customers rejecting the healthier McDonalds products. Although McDonalds are trying to combat litter in their local communities, they are one of the main causers of it. This is shown by a 2009 survey that McDonalds packaging makes up for a third of the Auks litter.Also a lot of their delivery packaging contributes to local landfills which if filled would have to be expanded or a new local site would have to be created which would decrease the appeal of the local area. Overall I think that McDonalds is bad for the local community as although it is trying to reduce its impact on the local community it still has a strong impact on the local populations health and the cleanliness of the surrounding area. This would decrease the appeal of the area which may lead to problems such s a decrease in house prices, less tourism and less people visiting the area to use the local shops.As I have mentioned above, McDonalds is often criticized for it negative effects on the customers health and its low sales in its healthy options. To decrease these negative effects McDonalds should look to invest in research on improving the nutritional value of their food. This research should include trials of various food ideas in some of their stores so that they can work out which ones to spread chain wide and which to improve on. After improving the healthiness of their product range they should then Penn a large amount of money on a new advertising campaign that advertises the largest changes e. . A large decrease in calories or saturated fat in their burgers. This should also include a look at their Other positive improvements such as their care for the environment and anything else related to the welfare of their customers and the environment they live in. Due to McDonalds advertisement of its healthier product range the companys image should improve. This should help to set up a business deal with a new healthy food partner such as Real Foods, Weight watchers, Wellness Foods or some other healthy food company who would be happier to e associated with a healthier McDonalds.With one of these heal thy food company McDonalds should work with them to try and improve the understanding of their healthier product range so that it seems a more attractive option to customers. This would allow McDonalds to gain a larger customer base as then only other large fast food chain that can advertise the healthiness of its food is subway who McDonalds could take customers from. This could also be used to try and appeal to a larger customer base as some organizations, such as weight watchers, offer their own food range for people who are dieting.If they sold weight watchers dieting products or certified some of their own products as recommended by a healthy food company then they would probably attract a lot of new customers as their main competition, KEF and Burger King do not offer any precise dieting products. Another benefit of this is that they could work with a company such as Real Foods to increase the amount of special diet foods on their menu. This would increase their customer bas e as it would attract people that are vegetarian, vegan or have an allergy to things like gluten or wheat.This improvement would greatly improve McDonalds image as they would come the market leader in healthy fast food which, with its environmental work, would alter the view of groups such as PETA who would not target them as much. This image change would also increase the amount of children (one of their prime demographics) that go to McDonalds as parents would be happier to take them if they had healthy food. SAD SAD benefits the local community mainly through its SAD foundation program which supports a lot of small charities located around the ILK.This is especially helpful to the local community as most businesses only support arguer charities but as SAD has this program it can donate to smaller charities that need the money to improve their functionality in the local community. So far this year the program has donated almost E3000000 to a wide variety of charities which often o ffer specialist support for members of the community. Another way SAD is helping the local community is through its new plan to give Store space to local authorities, businesses, voluntary groups and educational services.It is giving this space as a lot more customers are buying online and so the stores do not need as much space for stock. This helps the local community as it means that customers are more likely to find out about various groups and community projects in their community. The final way SAD has had a positive impact on the local community is through its community life program which offers customers the opportunity to vote on what SAD should do with the money it plans on investing in the local community. This helps the local community as it increases the relativity of the changes for the local community.This also encourages other groups to consult the community more due to the increased advertisement they receive from voters. SAD has also had a negative community due to where its building. A lot of Sads stores are deliberately located near another supermarket to try and reduce its profits. The problem with this is that often they cant find a suitable site near enough and so use think loopholes and other methods such as paying for an improved transport system to secure sites that arent meant to be built on.This affects the community negatively because it is likely that there would have been a reason for the council not wanting the supermarket being built there (e. G. The site had natural beauty). This also effects where the average shopper purchases goods as many of these stores are located out of town or on the edge of towns many people are drawn away from the shopping area Of the town and so are less likely to purchase something from that area. Due to Sads delivery service many of their Lorries have to go into smaller towns to make deliveries.This poses problems for the local community as they may not have the infrastructure needed for Lorries t o travel through their town which could cause damage to the roads and congestion. This effects the local community as the council would have to pay for any damage one to the road and the local people may find it harder to get to their destination. Like other supermarkets, SAD cause 2 main problems, increased traffic and a decrease in business for local shops.