Posts Tagged ‘Importance’
The Importance of Energy Efficient Buildings
April 10, 2013 | 
Author “Going green” has become something of a fashionable expression, applied to everything from shopping bags to shoes, to emphasise the fact that various products now cause less harm to the environment than they were previously known to cause. However, when it comes to business, ensuring your employees carry their work home in hemp bags simply isn’t going to be enough to save the planet. Of course it’s a small step in the right direction, but the race to save the environment won’t be won using a few small steps – we need to start running. One of the very best ways to reduce the negative impact your business has on the environment is to consider the effect of Energy efficient buildings.
Given the sheer amount of paper, plastic and glass wasted by big companies, there is no doubt whatsoever that taking steps to improve recycling has had a profoundly positive effect on the environment. However, as popular as this strategy was a decade ago, these days recycling waste isn’t even the least that the people of Britain, of indeed the British government, expect of big business. Although we must all take personal responsibility for our impact on the environment, a single big business alone can do harm to the planet than a small towns, so it is up to them to make the biggest and most important changes.
Of the changes businesses are expected to make, commitment to reduction of carbon emissions is amongst the most important. Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) is a new scheme aimed at slashing the amounts of carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere by large companies by offering financial rewards for doing so. As sad as it may be that companies require financial incentive to stop destroyed the planet, this is the state we find ourselves in. Of course, there are myriad different ways in which a company can reduce its carbon emissions, though one of the most effective ways is by ensuring they are using Energy efficient buildings. Every day, a massive amount of energy is wasted on fuelling commercial buildings; buildings with a lack of decent insulation, filled with energy inefficient machinery and devices, and lit by incandescent light bulbs with a lifespan a tenth as long florescent alternatives.
Simply investing in suitable windows, light bulbs and equipment in a commercial building will go a huge way to reducing the carbon emissions of the company as a whole. Turning off lights and electronic devices when not in use, as well as investing in eco-friendly boiler systems and furnaces will also help make a building more energy efficient and help your company get in line with new legislation.
While we must ensure we take every little step towards making businesses and households as eco-friendly as possible, we must ensure we don’t overlook the big changes as well. If recycling and hemp bags are a small step in the right direction, ensuring our buildings are as energy efficient as possible is a huge leap.
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Importance of CSR for Small Companies
Did you know that approximately 90% of businesses worldwide are made up of small to medium sized enterprises? SMEs also provide 50-60% employment, playing an important role in the development of the society. Small and medium sized companies are also an important factor in ensuring social welfare but sadly, initiatives related to corporate social responsibility have been mainly focused on multinationals and large companies. Experts believe that CSR is as important for small companies as it is for large firms since SMEs also have stakeholders and their impact is also significant for the society.
There are limited numbers of case studies that show small enterprises behaving in a socially responsible manner. According to industry experts, if a large number of small and medium level companies start making investments in the local communities, it will be easy to transform various social and environmental issues. It will help reduce poverty levels, provide more employment and also solve the problem of homelessness. For various transnational corporations, SME social responsibility can be improved if their supply chain risks are controlled. Issues such as child labor, health, environmental or safety problems in small and large companies are mostly found in developing countries. Therefore, significant changes will be required in this sector and the government will have to encourage small companies to make sure that CSR activities are undertaken and such issues are solved.
There are some who feel that corporate social responsibility can have a negative impact if it is implemented on small companies in developing nations. It will not only increase the costs but the companies will also face difficulties in competing in the market. They believe that good results will be shown on the basis of how CSR is integrated in small business activities. But all said and done, corporate social responsibility represents an approach for doing business in a better manner so; it should be promoted to SMEs. By following CSR activities, small companies can easily manage environmental impact and bring down their costs. They can also retain good employees and exercise leadership in the market to make a difference.
Importance Of Csr And Business Ethics
1. Importance of CSR and Business Ethics
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and business ethics have grown considerably in developed and developing countries over the past decades. The CSR and Business Ethics are concerned about the caring the human beings and its society. Because of this, CSR has emerged as an unavoidable concerned to the leaders of every nations. Still efficiency could not be gained as targeted.
The growing importance of business ethics and CSR in recent years has helped in “promoting the human rights in China” and it can be important to raise the interest “awareness on corporate, labour, social and environmental practices” as per Backgrounder (2008). This is the reason why the Communist Party enacted the Labour contract Law in 2008 in order to provide minimum protections to workers.
Development of human rights, labour standards, environment and anti-corruption is essential elements in business as stated in the “10 Principles in Business Activities” by the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan at the World Economic Forum on January 31, 1999.
Corporate Social Responsibility along with business ethics plays significant roles in the success and failure of the business. CSR plays an important role in forecasting and decisions making. Kitzmueller (2008) focus on the CSR as an essential building block of the firm’s strategy. The study further added that the investors based their investment decisions not only on financial but also on social and environmental performance criteria. The importance of CRS is gradually rising day by day and general people are more aware on this issue.
2. Political Perspective of CSR
The need of CSR is rising from the past decades. The people who share the power at top level are gradually taking the issue of CSR in their interest. Each and every responsible people including stakeholders, government are taking the various issues of corporate social responsibilities in a serious way. Political and business people are doing it for their own interest and prospects.
According to UN (2007), “The concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) aims both to examine the role of business in society and to maximize the positive social outcomes of business activities.” The study further made analysis on the why developing country governments should be interested in CSR. The study made analysis on two reasons for low income countries to engage for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). They are “defensive and proactive justifications which are not mutually exclusive”. Defensive justification is more related to minimizing the adverse effect of CSR on local communities, environments and markets. The study further deals on the example of Vietnamese garment and footwear industries on increasing national competitiveness through improved CSR practice. Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce and Industries (VCCI) provide the CSR support trainings on CSR skills and practices as a result the company is able to receive the Corporate Social Responsibility Award 2006. The study gave more focus on the importance of government to provide CSR training to its companies to increase its competitiveness because the foreign investors basically bring the expertise knowledge with them from the abroad. It is necessary for the local companies to compete them.
United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) has been working in the field of CSR especially for developing countries. The organization is contributing to make the individual and cluster companies of developing countries to compete with foreign multinational companies in the field of CSR. UNIDO (2006) says, “CSR has frequently been misleadingly equated simply with ‘corporate philanthropy’ and ‘charitable giving’, which in turn are often separate from their core business and without an underlying strategic plan behind it”
There are many cases where that the CSR has failed in recent days. Despite of positive views, there are alternative views that show CSR policies have no real impact on society and people. The political systems and business man are just bringing the new issues to highlight themselves and coming to the media and among the people. The study of Gill (2007) made criticism on CSR as “ill defined”. The study focused on the lack of validity for measuring the CSR. The studies of Doane (2005, cited Gill 2007) view CSR by stating the “political complexities”. The study further states CSR as a “myth” and argues on the corporate moral obligations and licence given to operate the business by the political parties. This shows that the CSR can harm the societies by creating the competition among the business houses. This leads to negative effect on society and corporate governance due to the lack of transparency on “corporate decisions, social activities and policies” as per Crane and Matten (2007).
3. Debates on Corporate Social Responsibilities
CSR holds many issues of debates. Different organizations and environmental rating agencies are keeping more records and track on the issues that the organizations and political parties are making. Most debates are more concerned about the transparency policy of the organizations. CSR has become a tool for defending the competitors.
On the other hand, government is no more proactive like in the past. The study of Ascoli (2009) explains that the government involvement is increased when a global economic crisis took place. The study focused on sign of more “good governance” in CSR practices.
In the words of Ascoli (2009), “Government led CSR promotion faces several challenges” The study states that the effort for promoting CSR for the companies as a volunteering action do not guarantee proper implementation.
It is hard to match the interest between the general public and private organization as the CSR the managers have to focus on attaining a balance between the stakeholders and strategic planning. It is sometimes debated by the organization that the private sector should purely involve in profit maximization and government should only think about the social and environmental issues.
United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) has been working in the field of CSR especially for developing countries. The organization is contributing to make the individual and cluster companies of developing countries to compete with foreign multinational companies in the field of CSR. UNIDO (2006) says, “CSR has frequently been misleadingly equated simply with ‘corporate philanthropy’ and ‘charitable giving’, which in turn are often separate from their core business and without an underlying strategic plan behind it”
4. The Responses of Companies to CSR
The ample of studies and research works on CSR show that the companies and politicians are positive towards the CSR. They are forced to adopt the policies of CSR for defensive reason in order to be secured in the market. CSR clearly impacts our corporations, society, and educational organizations. It provides a powerful driver for continual efficiency across the national boundaries.
Each and every activity that the organization does can have the ripple effect. The company should take account of such effects and work for the mutual benefits of the two parties. The Figure 1 shows the detail analysis of Ripple Effect as suggested by Marsden and Andriof (1998, cited Zappla 2003).
The Coca-Cola Company claims that they are concerned about the business ethics and CSR. The company has published the 2006 reports stating that the water use ratio has been decreased than the previous years. The company has given more focus on the environmental issues by stating the use of waste water after proper treatment. The company is also proud to announce the refillable packaging system. For this it has already opened the recycling plant in Austria. During the economic crisis, usually firm are ready to help the people and communities on growth and welfare in the sake of creating future customers. Coca-Cola companies is doing this for creating the values for stakeholders and societies by bring new concept like “Going Green”.
Governmental organizations are increasingly focusing their attention on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices. According to Maloni (2006), “CSR continues to evolve in practice, and its reach now often extends to supply chain partners including suppliers, customers, and logistics providers.” The study gave the example of failure of CSR adopted NIKE regarding the “sweatshop labor issues and its overseas suppliers.”
5. Conclusion
CSR, due to social activities, much attention is given. It enables political and business people to acquire the targeted result quickly. It has become the tool for future prospects of different groups that facilitates receiving the fame in near future.
In underdeveloped and developed countries the growth of CSR has been widespread in recent times. Despite of the controversies, the political elite of the world are continuingly raising the issue of CSR stating the important implications for economic activities although they fail themselves. They are selling the policies for popularity. A study by Hertz (2001 cited Crane and Matten 2007) and Smith (1990 cited Crane and Matten 1997 ) argued that there is more power in individual choice as a consumer than in their choice in the ballot box and consumption choices are for “purchase votes” in the public control of corporations.
The Importance of Renewable Energy Resources
The modern lifestyle depends tremendously on the use and existence of fossil fuels. With levels of these fuels constantly decreasing, we should act now to become less dependant on fossil fuels and more dependent on renewable energy sources.
The decreasing levels of fossil fuels isn’t the only reason why we should begin to use renewable energy. Pollution is becoming a huge problem in many countries around the world, especially the developing world. With carbon emissions at an all time high, air quality can be very low in some areas, this can lead to respiratory diseases and cancer.
The main reason to switch to cleaner energy production methods is the global warming aspect. The more carbon dioxide we pump into the atmosphere, the greater the effect becomes. We can’t just stop using fossil fuels thinking that global warming will go away, but we can slow down and dilute the effects of global warming through the wide spread use of renewable energy resources.
There are many natural energy sources out there, but you have to decide which method is best for you, as all of these sources depend on your current environment.
The installation of a solar panel or a wind turbine to boost every homes power supply would be an amazing step forward. Some governments are in the process of supplying solar panels to hundreds of households to test this method of energy saving.
A technology set to be very important in the future is geothermal energy. With geothermal energy, you are able to extract heat from within the earth and transform it either into a hot water system, or if there is plenty of this energy, a geothermal power plant. Huge amounts of money have been flowed into research of this method, especially in recent years, in order to make the current technology more effective.
So there we have the reasons why we should turn to renewable energy resources which are more than likely to play a very vital and important role in our future society.