Sears Canada Commitment to CSR Sears Canada commits itself to Corporate Social Responsibility and truly cares about the "triple bottom line", or "people, planet, and profit". Sears cares not only about making money but also making sure they do it in an ethical manner. Environmental Issues Sears Canada is meeting the environmental needs of our world in many different ways. To start with Sears not only sets goals, but the company also achieves them. Starting in 2007 Sears set the ambitious goal of reducing their paper consumption by 50% by 2013, one they achieved. One other goal they set was starting in 2007 to reduce their carbon footprint by 50% by 2020. As of 2010 they had reduced their carbon footprint by 15%, ahead of schedule. Helping to make our Earth cleaner with less garbage in landfills and less pollution in our air is what Sears is doing to help protect our Earth. The positive outcome to society that occurs by Sears meeting the …show more content…
They hire many people with disabilities to work for them and will not decline someone from working at Sears because of a disability. The people at Sears also work hard to meet the needs of employees with disabilities. For example Sears may need to add ramps to accommodate an employee's needs. Also Sears implements the "Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act" by training their employees to communicate with people who have disabilities in an appropriate manner. Also Sears makes all of their facilities wheelchair assessable including washrooms and elevators. When Sears implements these acts a positive outcome to society occurs. When anyone has access to either working in a Sears store or being able to shop at one it benefits everyone by being courteous to the needs of people with
Supplying eco-friendly products has been on the Walmart agenda since the early 1990s. After a failed first attempt and much criticism, the company decided to try again. In a speech made in October of 2005, CEO of Walmart, H. Lee Scott Jr., declared Walmart would devise a “business sustainable strategy” to reduce the environmental impact the company had. Walmart could not pull this off alone. If they only focused on the confines of themselves, rather than all that they were involved with, it was estimated that they’d only reduce their impact by about 10%. To reach that goal of 100%, Walmart had to involve stakeholders to make networks which achieve sustainability. These networks proved to be vital in not only Walmart’s goal in minimizing its environmental impact, but recovering their reputation, avoiding criticism, saving money, raising awareness, improving customer satisfaction, and creating incentive for other businesses to work towards sustainability.
The Wal-Mart Corporation is a multi-billion dollar low-cost retail organization, consisting of 6400 stores and 1.8 million sales associates worldwide. Wal-Mart’s influence on the retail world and the enormity of their corporate size is unparalleled. Wal-Mart can easily report sales of $312.4 billion dollars per fiscal quarter and net profits of $3.8 billion dollars. Wal-Mart promises her customers "Always low prices. Always!" and upholds this motto by providing low prices to her customers and high return on investment to her stockholders. One way that Wal-Mart has managed to maintain a competitive edge over other low cost retail giants and provide low prices is by cutting wages and by not offering too many company benefits to their employees. Full-time employee working at Wal-Mart only make $8 an hour, while only 45% of the workers can afford to be covered by health insurance. Wal-Mart also increase part time employees from 20 percent to 40 percent so that they do not have to cover all of their employees for health insurance . Although Wal-Mart may not provide excellent benefits to her employees, it successfully performs as a legitimate business operating in a capitalistic society. Wal-Mart upholds the primary fiduciary duty to satisfy her stockholder and follows free the market libertarianism model, which states that a business should not interfering with the free market. In a free market Wal-Mart has a direct responsibility to her primary stockholders rather than the employees of a company.
... increase energy efficiency. The primary goals included spending $500 million a year to increase fuel efficiency in Wal-Mart’s truck fleet by 25% over three years and double it within ten, reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20% in seven years, reduce energy use at stores by 30%, and cut solid waste from U.S. stores and Sam’s Clubs by 25% in three years. CEO Lee Scott said that Wal-Mart's goal was to be a "good steward for the environment" and ultimately use only renewable energy sources and produce zero waste. Wal-Mart further took a few steps in a positive direction, which included becoming the biggest seller of organic milk and the biggest buyer of organic cotton in the world, as well as reducing packaging and energy costs.
The expectation that businesses behave responsibly and positively contribute to society all while pursuing their economic goals is one that holds firm through all generations. Stakeholders, both market and nonmarket, expect businesses to be socially responsible. Many companies have responded to this by including this growing expectation as part of their overall business operations. There are companies in existence today whose sole purpose is to socially benefit society alongside businesses who simply combine social benefits with their economic goals as their company mission. These changes in societal expectations and thus company purpose we’ve seen in the business community over time often blurs the line of what it means to be socially responsible, how far a company should go to achieve this and just how much it should cost.
With that, Walmart are able to provides products that are beneficial to the environment and customers can be aware that how much impact the products they bought can do to the environment. Walmart buy products from more than 60,000 supplies from 70 countries. With the Sustainability Index, Walmart can make sure that the products bought from the suppliers do not harm the environment. When Walmart are able to reduce the waste products from the organization, they can cut the cost and provides lower prices for customers. By reducing the waste of the products, Walmart can save millions
The business world has always been a very risky business. There is a lot to worry about no matter what position a person fulfills; everyone has some level of responsibility. The Gap Incorporated is a multinational specialty retail company (Gap Inc. 2014). The company was created by a Doris and Don Fisher (Joslin et. al. 2010). Don Fisher and his wife was a very wealthy couple, Don was a real estate developer (Joslin et. al. 2010). They decided to open up a clothing store when Don realized how popular jeans were becoming in the fashion industry. Another reason that Don Fisher wanted to open a clothing store is because he has an extremely difficult time finding jeans that fit him properly in department stores (Joslin et. al. 2010). So in the year of 1969 the Fishers opened the very first Gap store in San Francisco, California (Gap Inc. 2014). In this paper I will explore The Gap Incorporated and discuss the company’s ethical culture and behavior past and present. Based on preliminary information, I hypothesize that The Gap Incorporated is an ethical company.
First, in relation to the organization’s most important asset, people, Sears has failed to recognize the distinctive competences that lie in the skills and abilities of their own employees. Sears once was a very successful organization in relation to how they treat their employees. Sears was one of the pioneers of measuring employee engagement in the retail industry by creating a set of measures known as Total Performance Indicators. People who enjoy going to work every day, as a result of a high-performing company culture, increases their productivity, giving them a higher return on salary. This model of employee engagement worked very well for Sears in the past, however, in recent years, Sears has strayed away from this core competency.
The corporate social responsibility is a commitment by a business to contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life for employees and their families’ as-well as contributing to the society. Walmart is a well-known company that offers customers the items they want and need at a low cost, with nearly 4,000 stores in the United States. According to the Fortune 500, Walmart was ranked number 1 in 2015. Just like any other superstore Walmart needs to continue the use of social responsibility by recreating a relationship between business and the community especially if they want to dominate the competition in 2016. The use of sustainability, strategic philanthropy, causing market, shared values, stakeholders and global perspective will help readers understand the purpose of social responsibilities in the corporate world.
This is where a firm is more about making money, than it shows concern for the people affected buy their actions and decisions. Whither an employee, the manufacture, or the people in the community they serve. Walmart is a vivid example of this very thing. It is also an example of a firm with a large economic wealth and a low CSR reputation. Even though Walmart operates over 11,000 retail units under 65 banners in 28 countries and employ 2.2 million associates around the world –1.3 million in the United States lone. (Our Locations,
In the article, The Truth About CSR by Kasturi Rangan, Lisa Chase, and Sohel Karim, the importance that coherence plays in corporate social responsibility (CSR), is emphasized. Throughout the article, corporate social responsibility application, within corporations, is broken down into three theaters. According to the article, many corporations do not focus on their CSR programs, and usually see these CSR actions as a secondary responsibility following the responsibility they hold towards their shareholders. It is argued in the article that in CSR is a key and essential block for corporate success, focusing on CSR coherence throughout all three theaters will bring positive results along the way, possibly making the corporation
Environmental awareness has also become a distinctive competence for Walmart. The company has a genuine concern to reduce their environmental footprint, which will appeal to customers who support this initiative. They are leading the way for other big-box retailers who can make a big difference with small changes. All of their goals and objectives are published in the annual statement for shareholders and the general public.
The primary goal of The Walt Disney Company is to become one of the world’s leading producers and providers of not only entertainment, but also information (The Walt Disney Company, 2014). The company aims to achieve this by utilizing its immense brand portfolio so as to differentiate services, content, and consumer products. While this is the overall goal, there exist other innate milestones that essentially touch on socially responsible business in enhancing sustainability. They include, but are not limited to; zero net greenhouse gas emissions, whereby the company aims to have reduced net greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2020; zero waste, whereby Walt Disney hopes to achieve a 60% reduction in waste from
While the concept of an individual having responsibility is commonly recognized, modern views have lead to the emerging issue of corporate responsibility. Business Directory.com defines corporate social responsibility as, “A company’s sense of responsibility towards the community and environment (both ecological and social) in which it operates. Companies express this citizenship (1) through their waste and pollution reduction processes, (2) by contributing educational and social programs, and (3) by earning adequate returns on the employed resources.” But such a concept has been much disputed since at least the 1970’s.
The sustainability of ecosystems on which the global economy depends must be guaranteed. And the economic partners must be satisfied that the basis of exchange is equitable” (World). This quote demonstrates the complexities of sustainability. Another thing corporations should focus on when trying to be sustainable is their environmental impact. Annie Leonard in her book The Story of Stuff says that companies can significantly reduce their toll on the environment by changing their design. The design determines “the amount of energy used in making and using the product,” “the length of the product’s life span” and “its ability to be recycled” (Leonard). All these things determine the amount of resources a company must use, so simply changing a product’s design is one way a company can have a large impact on the sustainability of the environment in which it operates. One example of this is that “Wal-Mart attributed more that $100 million of its 2009 revenue to a decision to switch to a recyclable variety of cardboard in shipments” which it sells to a recycler instead of paying to send it to a landfill
Further, “In 2008, nearly 13 tonnes of waste were generated by Canadian households. Of this, more than 8.5 million tonnes were disposed of in landfills or incine...