Corporate Social and Environmental Responsibility - Assignment Example

of project: FINANCIAL REPORTING – COPPRATE SOCIAL AND ENVIRONEMENTAL RESPONSIBILTY and number: ’s name: Date submitted: a) Identify the main reasons why companies might undertake corporate social and environmental reporting and evaluate against those reasons the ABF plc “CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY REPORT 2013” Corporate Social and Environmental Responsibility (CSER) for any business organization irrespective of the industry in which they are operating, is referred to demonstrate the act and gesture of corporate citizenship, environmental care and completely acknowledgement by organization for its responsibility and duty towards the society and environment, at large (Epstein-Reeves, 2012). The phenomena of CSER is evolving on daily basis all over the globe as it clearly and logically demonstrate and evident that the overall objective, missions and strategy of organization is not to simply promote its very own business and increase the ultimate goal of profit figures but, on the other hand, these organization also acknowledges their secondary responsibility towards its society people and environmental affects. Broadly speaking, the main reasons behind the pursuance and practice of CSER reforms by the entity are many and have been discussed as under; The primary purpose of conducting various CSER activities by Company is the clear acknowledgement on the part of the Company that they do care about its society, their peoples, and environment and therefore, is consistently working on the promotion of various subjects of the society including, literature, sports, health, safety and others. CSER involve in incurring some short-term expenses and costs for the organization that do not also provide an instant financial benefit to the business, but instead it provides some qualitative return to the business in the long run. The activities of CSER widely promote many positive and beneficial transformations into the society and environment, in which the organization is performing their operations. Similarly, the acts of CSER also build up the overall standing and reputation of the business in the society and national, as well. With the help of CSER report, the ultimate aim of the business is to signify towards the society that they are the organization which have strict regulations and controls over the various business evils, including, Frauds, Bribery, Political influences and gifts, conflict of interests, compromise of independence issues, tax evasion, unethical business practice, unfair competitive activities, lack of confidentiality of business information and acumen, harassment of human rights and values, discrimination and many others, depending on the structure and needs of the organization. Through, CSER, business organization also wants demonstrate they strictly follow health and safety measures, its code of conduct, regulatory guidelines and are continually striving for improvement in order to accrue lesser and lesser damage to physical environment and nature. Evaluation from ABF Plc perspectives ABF Plc’s Corporate Responsibility Report clearly demonstrates that how much importance they are actually giving to the area of society welfare and environmental safety and the health of its people. This can be wisely analyzed by of the organization hierarchy structure that the ultimate authority of Chief Executive is directly leading the activities and accountabilities of the Company’s Director of Legal services and Company Secretary and Director of Group HR on the respective assigned areas of CR and HSE respectively. Furthermore, ABE Plc is actively pursuing and deeply involved in various CSER according to is classified business segments including, Sugar, Agriculture, Retail, Grocery and Ingredients. In addition, the core stress and weight age is given by the organization above all, related to its smart and efficient consumption of non renewable resources, recycling of renewable energy sources, health and safety improvements, annual reduction in accidents, injuries and health threats and ultimate promotion of human welfare in the areas of charity, donation, health care and education. b) What are the main generic drawbacks of social and environmental reporting and to what extent does ABF’s report suffer from them and then overcome them. Over and above the various advantages and benefits of CSER activities on the general outlook of any organization, the corporate social and environmental responsibility do have its many negatives perspectives on the mindsets of stakeholders and on the structure and smooth running of the organization as well. Some of them have been highlight and discussed below; General Perspection of Stakeholders Most obvious and general drawbacks related to the issues and conceptions that revolve around the mindsets of various stakeholders of the Company. Many stakeholders of the Companies, especially, shareholders and consumers may regard the implications and logic behind the CSER reporting by the organization as clearly biased and prejudicial. Because they believe that the ultimate objective such activities or reporting is directly related to the financial benefits of such organization, which is hidden by one or the other means. Extra Cost and Workloads on Entity The implementation expense of social responsibility reporting is quite high as it actively demands a high labor workload and pressures, especially at the startup up phase of such activities implementation. As, pro active planning and most of the troubleshooting strategies related to such CSER program have to be thoroughly organized by Company’s management, that could directly incur massive time, energy and cost utilization on part of such entities. Business Objective Other drawback of such CSER reporting that it might directly affects the fulfillment of the overall objective and strategically business plans of the organization. Because the primary objective of organization is to serve the needs of its stakeholders and most private concerns aims to maximize their profits and shareholders worth and therefore, to implement the efficient CSER accounting system could adversely affect the prime fulfillment of the Company Objects (Panwar, Rinne, Hansen and Juslin, 2006) Staff Morale The implementation process of CSER would mostly require heavy workload and pressures on the employee’s shoulders that may deteriorate their ultimate motivational level and morale. In addition, having to work for extra hours and undue workload together with minimal pay rate to them would definitely cause employees to look for employment opportunities on other grounds. Implications on ABF Plc Report As the ABF Plc report is quite comprehensive and detailed out, therefore at first glance of its stakeholders over the report may create pressure on them as to how to filter out relevant and valid information as per their specific needs. Thus, it would take their ample time in order to filter out the explanations on various matters of CSER relevant to them. But, this drawback is particularly overcome by ABF Plc, management by the inclusion of summarized page at the beginning of its report related to the highlights on its various CSER activities under taken throughout the year. Further, the doubtfulness and reliability issues over the ABF Plc report by various stakeholders has also been removed by the Company to some extent as the Company have complete depicted and demonstrated with the help of relevant figures, past trends, graphs analysis and its expectations and realities of strong background of Company’s overall performance in the field of CSER. c) In his introduction to the report, ABF chief executive George Weston identifies several different groups that the organisation has an impact on (including for instance ABF leaders, their communities and supply chains, customers, the growing global population, future generations, employees, neighbour communities, suppliers, and the wider environment). Explain which group you consider that the report overall “best” meets the needs of, and which group it “least well” meets the needs of. However, the report clearly demonstrate a complete set of measures under taken by ABF Plc. to promote and detailing out its various CSER activities, in one or the other form, to all of its concerned stakeholders and related parties. But, according to me the report is best meeting the needs of sector related to their communities and supply chains and on the other hand the least well group for the report is the future generation group. The report has smartly and creatively mentioned and highlighted the various core and primary issues and aspects related to the Company’s communities and its supply chains people. The report detailed out specifically its various corporate social initiatives and programs that it has undertaken to promote the welfare of the people living in the society at large in the area of education, charities, health and safety, sanitation, and future generation’s needs. This information would clearly help out the company’s affected communities to understand what ABF Plc. has done for them. Moreover, a group of supply chain people would also absorb various ups and downs in the overall supply chain procedures by utilizing this report analytically. The report would be less beneficial for those groups which are interested specifically interested to analyze the benefits to future generation groups that have been accrued with the Company’s report. As the Company currently pursuing the active reformation steps for its current society, through its CSER program therefore, and obviously, fewer highlights have been given to this group area. d) Set out two recommendations to improve the ABF plc report from the perspective of users of the report. Base your recommendations on your previous analysis and remember to include explanations, evidence and examples. I would personally encourage some recommendations in the report from the point of view of certain regulatory authorities which are directly or indirectly connected or associated with the ABF Plc. The report should include a specific section on various issues and matters of the society and environments which should be given due and prior importance by the governmental bodies. Because, in this way many social and environmental issues would be more likely to get resolved in upcoming time span with the help of involvement of the regulatory bodies in such programs. For example, ABF Plc, should clearly mentioned and detailed out certain reservation and key points on the area of future generation children health and care by identifying definite measures to be taken in the hospital and health care centres which would prove beneficial to their health and mental abilities in their upcoming bright future lives. Another recommendation for the report improvement from my side would be the inclusion of specific area related to labour staff health and work environment related safety and security. For example, ABF Plc. should include the vital statistics about implementation of standardised safe and healthy working environment measures by how many industrial organizations countrywide and how many of them still needs to implement those for the betterment of working lives of labour staff. References or Bibliographies Epstein-Reeves, J., 2012. Six Reasons Companies Should Embrace CSR. [online] Forbes. Available at: [Accessed 17 Apr. 2014]. Panwar, R., Rinne, T., Hansen, E. and Juslin, H., 2006. Corporate responsibility: balancing economic, environmental, and social issues in the forest products industry. Forest Products Journal, 2006. Read More