Social Responsibility

Business Paper 2

Meaning of Social Responsibility (5)

• Social responsibility refers to the obligation to work towards improving the welfare of society

• It is an ethical viewpoint that states that every organisation has an obligation to benefit society as a whole

• It is the responsibility that every citizen, individual or organisation has to contribute towards improving their community and the environment in which they live.

• This responsibility can take the form of

- Avoiding actions that could harm the environment and society

- Acting in ways to improve people’s quality of life

- Implementing initiatives that could benefit society

• It is the duty of every business to maintain a balance between the environment and the economy

Meaning of the triple bottom line (3)

• The triple bottom line means that businesses should focus on profit (economic), people (social) and planet (environmental)

• It is an accounting framework used to evaluate their performance to create greater business value

• It can be used to measure performance by evaluating economic, political and environmental successes

Link between CSR and TBL: Profit (2)

• The triple bottom line means that businesses should not only focus on generating profit or charging high prices, but should also invest in CSI projects

• Business should not make a profit at the expense of its community

Link between CSR and TBL: People (3)

• Business operations should not have a negative impact on or exploit people, employees, customers or the community

• The business should invest or engage in sustainable community programmes that will benefit the community

• Improve the quality of life of their employees

Link between CSR and TBL: Planet (3)

• Businesses should not exhaust resources or harm the environment for production purposes

• They may support energy-efficient or eco-friendly products or production methods

• Recycle or re-use waste material, e.g. packaging from recycled material

Ways a business project can contribute towards the community (5)

Business projects aimed at social responsibility could contribute to the community in the following ways:

• Charitable contributions to NGOs focused on the community’s needs

• Employee volunteer programmes where employees contribute to the community without getting paid

• Involvement in community education, homelessness, health and other community programmes

• Train people within the community, especially the unemployed

• Management could mentor new business owners to improve

Socio-economic issues (3)

• HIV/AIDS

• Unemployment

• Poverty

Strategies to deal with HIV/AIDS (5)

• Offer counselling programmes for infected and affected persons and employees

• Conduct workshops on HIV/AIDS programmes and campaigns

• Encourage employees to join HIV/AIDS support groups

• Develop strategies to deal with stigma and discrimination

• Roll out antiretroviral (ARV) treatment programmes (ART) for infected employees

Strategies to deal with unemployment (5)

• Provide skills development programmes through learnership programmes

• Offer bursaries to people in the community to improve levels of education

• Create jobs for members of the community in the business

• Use members of the community to implement CSI programmes in the community

• Provide entrepreneurship programmes to promote self-employment

Strategies to deal with poverty (5)

• Invest in youth startup businesses that can become a competitor, a buyer or a supplier

• Invest in infrastructure and housing programmes in the local area

• Attract the best employees by being socially responsible and offering the best volunteering programmes

• Support poverty alleviation initiatives offered by the government

• Donate money or food parcels to local NGOs

Ways to contribute time and effort to improve the well-being of employees (5)

• Provide recreational facilities for employees

• Allow flexible working hours to enhance productivity

• Provide transport for employees who work unusually long hours

• Conduct team building sessions to improve employees’ morale

• Offer annual medical examinations to employees

Ways to contribute time and effort to improve the well-being of the community (5)

• Businesses should improve the general quality of life of the community, e.g invest in education, etc

• Ensure that the products they supply do not harm the consumer or the environment

• Refrain from engaging in illegal activities such as employing children under the legal age

• Make ethically correct business decisions such as not engaging in unfair or misleading advertising

• Donate to a project or run a project to uplift the community