We know that growth is incredibly important to businesses, but to what lengths should you go to in order to achieve it? If you're aiming to grow just by reinvesting profit, your journey is most likely going to be an incredibly long one. Thats why a common growth strategy we've seen used in recent years is mergers and acquisitions. As well as that, businesses look to form partnerships with other businesses in order to get their products to more customers. Whilst this can help to achieve the desired objective of growth, what about the CSR implications?
If you've been keeping up with our 'Case Studies' series, you may have seen that there was a post entirely dedicated to Innocent Drinks. In that post I highlighted how Innocent drinks may not be the shining beacon of CSR that everybody thinks it is. To start with, Innocent had a contract to get their drinks in the McDonalds Happy Meal, which sort of goes against their 'healthy' image. However, perhaps even worse than that is that Innocent Drinks are now 90% owned by Coca Cola. Surely, if you're an ethical healthy drinks manufacturer, the last thing you do is sell up to an unhealthy unethical drinks manufacturer?
2) M&S & BP
When it comes to the high street, M&S are really trying to make a name for themselves, even pledging to become the 'world's most sustainable retailer'. That's all well and good, but if you want to claim that title, you're going to have to be extremely careful with who you partner with. However, what M&S decided to do was partner up with BP, so they could get their stores at as many of their petrol stations as possible. Sure, it might boost their profit, but it definitely doesn't help with their aim of becoming the world's most sustainable retailer. BP are responsible for one of the world's worst environmental disasters of all time lets not forget.
3) The Co-operative Group & Amazon
As far as business ethics goes, The Co-operative are one of my favourite companies. Ranked as the most ethical company of the last 25 years by Ethical Consumer, the Co-operative have a lot going for them. In fact, their unique business structure means that all the employees actually own a part of the business and are considered 'partners', which helps boost morale and give workers a sense of importance. However, as if aiming to deliberately undermine that, they have now teamed up with Amazon to include their Amazon lockers in a lot of their stores. With Amazon being one of the worst abusers of workers rights, this seems like a pretty poor decision from a responsibility standpoint.
4) Seeds Of Change & Mars
This one is incredibly similar to the example of Innocent drinks. Seeds of change is a small organic seed and food company. It's main company mission is to produce and provide healthy foods an focus heavily on the 'organic' label, ensuring that everything they produce is natural. Just like Innocent Drinks, Seeds Of Change are owned by a company that seem to go against that very mission, Mars. Whilst Mars is hardly the most unethical of companies, it\s product range seems to contradict that of Seeds Of Change.
Conclusion
Now what you may be thinking at this point is whether the partnerships listed above actually help or hinder the ethical organisations. On the one hand, the unethical behaviour and corporate greed of the bigger firm may change or influence the way the small company is run (in the case of Coca Cola and Innocent), however it may also provide the resources to do more social good than they could've previously dreamt of. It is therefore safe to conclude that these type of contradictory partnerships aren't necessarily good or bad, as it depends on whether the ethical firm can continue with their social/environmental mission. However, what is incredibly important is that consumers are aware of the ownership behind these ethical firms so they truly understand what they are buying into.
If you're a business that is built on the ideas of social responsibility, then you have to be incredibly careful who you work with. Here is a list of four companies that we think got it all a little bit wrong.
If you've been keeping up with our 'Case Studies' series, you may have seen that there was a post entirely dedicated to Innocent Drinks. In that post I highlighted how Innocent drinks may not be the shining beacon of CSR that everybody thinks it is. To start with, Innocent had a contract to get their drinks in the McDonalds Happy Meal, which sort of goes against their 'healthy' image. However, perhaps even worse than that is that Innocent Drinks are now 90% owned by Coca Cola. Surely, if you're an ethical healthy drinks manufacturer, the last thing you do is sell up to an unhealthy unethical drinks manufacturer?
2) M&S & BP
When it comes to the high street, M&S are really trying to make a name for themselves, even pledging to become the 'world's most sustainable retailer'. That's all well and good, but if you want to claim that title, you're going to have to be extremely careful with who you partner with. However, what M&S decided to do was partner up with BP, so they could get their stores at as many of their petrol stations as possible. Sure, it might boost their profit, but it definitely doesn't help with their aim of becoming the world's most sustainable retailer. BP are responsible for one of the world's worst environmental disasters of all time lets not forget.
3) The Co-operative Group & Amazon
As far as business ethics goes, The Co-operative are one of my favourite companies. Ranked as the most ethical company of the last 25 years by Ethical Consumer, the Co-operative have a lot going for them. In fact, their unique business structure means that all the employees actually own a part of the business and are considered 'partners', which helps boost morale and give workers a sense of importance. However, as if aiming to deliberately undermine that, they have now teamed up with Amazon to include their Amazon lockers in a lot of their stores. With Amazon being one of the worst abusers of workers rights, this seems like a pretty poor decision from a responsibility standpoint.
4) Seeds Of Change & Mars
This one is incredibly similar to the example of Innocent drinks. Seeds of change is a small organic seed and food company. It's main company mission is to produce and provide healthy foods an focus heavily on the 'organic' label, ensuring that everything they produce is natural. Just like Innocent Drinks, Seeds Of Change are owned by a company that seem to go against that very mission, Mars. Whilst Mars is hardly the most unethical of companies, it\s product range seems to contradict that of Seeds Of Change.
Conclusion
Now what you may be thinking at this point is whether the partnerships listed above actually help or hinder the ethical organisations. On the one hand, the unethical behaviour and corporate greed of the bigger firm may change or influence the way the small company is run (in the case of Coca Cola and Innocent), however it may also provide the resources to do more social good than they could've previously dreamt of. It is therefore safe to conclude that these type of contradictory partnerships aren't necessarily good or bad, as it depends on whether the ethical firm can continue with their social/environmental mission. However, what is incredibly important is that consumers are aware of the ownership behind these ethical firms so they truly understand what they are buying into.
This post first appeared on Sell No Evil | Corporate Social Responsibility, please read the originial post: here
