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What is corporate responsibility?

Published on November 29, 2021   41 min

A selection of talks on Strategy

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0:00
Hello to everybody. I'm going to speak about, what is corporate responsibility? My name is Nitin Mantri, the group CEO of Avian WE, which is a leading public relations consultancy in India. I'm also the president of the Public Relations Consultancy Association in India, as well as the International Communications Consultancy organisation, which is the apex body for communications consultancies across the world.
0:26
What is corporate responsibility? Let's start from the top. Corporate responsibility, or also called corporate sustainability, sustainable business, corporate conscience, corporate social responsibility, or corporate citizenship, or responsible business. It's a term that we use to describe a company's efforts to give back to society and make people's lives better and the real world, of course, a much better place to live in. The United Nations Industrial Development organisation defines corporate social responsibility as, "a management concept whereby companies integrates social and environmental concerns in their business, while at the same time addressing the expectations of shareholders and stake holders." Some key CSR issues are environmental management, eco-efficiency, responsible sourcing, fair labour policies and of course, working conditions come with that, employee and community relations, social equity (a lot has been talked about this in the recent past), Diversity and inclusion, human rights, good governance and anti-corruption measures. As you can see, a lot goes on under CSR issues. A properly implemented CSR concept can bring along a variety of competitive advantages for brands including: improved brand image and reputation, enhanced customer loyalty, enhanced access to capital markets and finally, of course, increased sales and profits. A common approach to CSR is corporate philanthropy, which is monetary donations and aid given to non-profit organisations and communities. Barring political contributions and commercial event sponsorship, donations are made in areas such as arts, education, housing, health, social welfare, and environment, among others. Philanthropy, on the other hand, is different from charity, though there are some other areas that may overlap. Charity aims to ameliorate a particular social problem. Philanthropy, on the other hand, addresses the root cause of the problem.