Patrycjagulaklipka,+018 Ksiezak
Patrycjagulaklipka,+018 Ksiezak
Patrycjagulaklipka,+018 Ksiezak
Abstract
Purpose: The aim of this paper is to discuss the areas of CSR and
analyse their elements to better understand the concept.
Design/methodology/approach: To analyse the elements of the
Triple Bottom Line model as a categorization of CSR areas and
compare it with another models.
Findings: Relations between Triple Bottom Line and other cate-
gorizations of CSR areas.
Research and practical limitations/implications: The article is
theoretical and can be a base for future research. Nevertheless, the
unsystematic research sampling should be considered a limitation
of the study.
Originality/value: The article focuses on Triple Bottom Line
and studies this concept in relation to other classifications. It has
particular value in situation when the policy concerning CSR is
obligatory for companies operating in the European Union area.
Paper type: literature review.
1. Introduction
Aside from pressures from general public and NGOs, the main driv-
er to use CSR is a corporate social contract. Every person who lives
under the social contract is bound to respect the law, to act responsibly,
and to relinquish some of their self-interest rights that are at odds with
the general good. Companies are obliged to produce goods that the
society requires and pay fair taxes. Moreover, in today’s economy, as
Mullerat (2010) states, taxes are not enough and companies, to not
breach the social contract, should assist in solving social issues. Both
corporations and society are considered equal partners that have rights
and responsibilities.
Facing the increasingly prevalent threat of global warming all large,
medium and small companies often care for the environment. Protec-
tion of the natural environment often brings additional cost savings, for
example in scaled-down litres of water used. Another important driver
for CSR is philanthropy and community involvement, like fighting
hunger and poverty locally and globally. Promotion of decent work
conditions and high standard of living is one of the most expected moti-
vators. In different countries there are different priorities. For instance,
safe workplace is the most important in Italy, Switzerland focuses on
eliminating the gender gap of salary, Norway bets on setting core labour
standards. Most of the companies also claim to fight the war against
corruption and bribery through increased transparency and reporting.
This leads to elevated dialogue with stakeholders and promotion of
communication with society (Visser and Tolhurst, 2010).
The importance of CSR as a business strategy is visible in relations
with every stakeholder. Companies need to inspire trust and be depend-
able to secure good relationships with customers, business partners,
suppliers, employees, and even NGOs. All of that, as Uddin, Hassan
and Tarique (2008) note, allows the companies to escalate their obli-
gation towards shareholders, whose gains are as enhanced as rises the
satisfaction of other stakeholders. They also mention three trending
dimensions, which boost the significance of CSR: evolving social
expectations, expanding prosperity and globalisation.
Broad spectrum of the CSR domain lets a company choose one or
several fields of activity that would suit the best the company’s mission.
It is important to direct business’s CSR policy in a congruous way and
that is why more and more corporations entrust that task to profession-
als. As Moon (2014) concurs, in recent years a vast number of CSR
consulting companies emerged. And the demand for their services is
98 Paulina Księżak, Barbara Fischbach
Most of CSR theories admit that the foundation of the idea is the Triple
Bottom Line (TBL) concept that was introduced in 1987 in Brundtland
Commission. It was officially named by John Elikngton in 1994. This
theory is also known as 3Ps or three pillars. It states that a company
should be responsible for three features: Profit, People and Planet, that
is economic, social and environmental responsibility. Only if a com-
pany cares for all three aspects of Triple Bottom Line, can it be called
sustainable, because all of them are extremely closely related. Caring
for Profit and for People makes it equitable and fair, but omitting envi-
ronmental protection dooms the Planet. On the other hand, tending only
to Planet and People, and forgetting about the Profit, makes CSR policy
bearable, but business needs profits to survive. Again, if a company
pays attention to Profit and Planet, discarding the People, Cane (2013)
believes that it is viable and profitable, but in the long term can lead to
the fall of employees’ morale and the breach of social contract.
3.1. Profit
Profit is a mandatory requirement, thanks to which a company has
a possibility to develop. Hopefully profit leads also to certain mea-
sures committed to responsible behaviour. However, the economic
part of CSR is not only about making profit, the most important task
is to use it well. The profit part of TBL has not been discussed often
in the last years, as there is a common view that it is well-tended, as
most of managers do not need a reminder to provide value for their
shareholders. Uddin et al. (2008) argue that the economic dimension of
CSR has more to do with direct and indirect economic impingement of
1
The authors are grateful to the anonymous reviewer for this comment.
100 Paulina Księżak, Barbara Fischbach
Taxes
Avoiding
The Multiplier actions that
Effect damage trust
Profit
the end, higher profit of the company appears to benefit everyone in the
community.
The second aspect of the economic dimension is contribution
through taxes. The higher the profit, the more fair tax is paid to the
government, which can spend it on its people, helping society with
the most grave issues. And corporations are the main taxpayers on the
local basis. Uddin et al. (2008) propose to see the taxes paid not as costs
but as a part of CSR’s contribution to society. This would make tax
avoidance harmful to society, as it means that companies do not want
to share their success with society.
The last facet of economic responsibility is evading any activity
that abuses trust. This has to do with the company’s licence to operate.
The reputation of a company, once shattered is very difficult to reclaim.
Many still remember the scandal from the 1970s involving Nestlé and
its baby formula sold in the third world countries, although the com-
pany channelled ample resources into elaborate CSR actions. Those
activities that could potentially jeopardize the confidence put in the
company should be aborted and replaced with trust-building actions.
The most visible example can be bribery and corruption that once dis-
covered, change the way the company is viewed for a long time, if not
irredeemably.
3.2. People
People are lifeblood of a company. The social dimension relies on
improving the standard of living. CSR is a tool that serves to develop
and preserve good relationship between society and an enterprise. This
is supremely important in the relations of small and medium enterprises
and local communities. SMEs usually take their workforce from the
area in which they operate, thus the responsibility doubles: employees
are at the same time the local community (Gołaszewska-Kaczan, 2009).
As a result, those companies are usually closer to the society and know
where the most acute problems lie.
Nevertheless, the local community is not only the individuals liv-
ing in the area. It is also all the groups and organisations acting in the
neighbourhood. Social responsibility covers all the people affected by
a company or those who affect it. In that sense business takes the bur-
den of assuring the well-being of the people and invests in their skills,
needed for recruiting process. Companies cannot exist without their
workers, the customers or participants of the supply chain. Previously
102 Paulina Księżak, Barbara Fischbach
Resonsibility
towards
Employees
Responsibility Responsibility
towards towards
Customers Community
People
them and they are aware that their favour is what makes the company
profitable. Gołaszewska-Kaczan (2009) brings up the idea of a ‘New
Consumer’ that is an independent, but concerned individualist that
looks for authenticity and, most of all, is well informed. Today’s con-
sumers have an access to the Internet that allows them to quickly get
to the enormous number of facts on the product they are going to buy,
therefore they can compare goods, and even producers before making
a conscious decision. ‘New Consumer’ does not want more, but better,
he or she wants superior quality and an improved standard of living.
As a result, ‘New Consumer’ is a critic. He or she has an opinion on
company’s policy and requires confirmation that goods were produced
in a socially responsible way. ‘New Consumer’ has power to boycott
a company and destroy its reputation with a negative review on the
Internet that in the blink of an eye finds willing receivers. That is why
a well-designed value for money is an important variable that often
decides the success or failure of a product. Customers expect good
quality, but also prominent service during transaction and refined after
sales service. Tending to all customers’ needs is a potential driver of
profitability (Gołaszewska-Kaczan, 2009).
Another aspect of the social dimension of TBL is responsibility
towards employees. The employment itself is beneficial for people,
but it is not enough. CSR for workers should ensure the best use of
their skills, taking care for their well-being. Companies should make
sure that all the safety measures are respected. They can also provide
possibility of self-realisation for the employees through education and
training courses and devise the best system of motivating. Absolutely
vital for CSR policy is impartial treatment, with no regard for gender,
age or other differences. Diversity management allows for creating
such an environment within the company that makes possible to use the
potential of unique competences of workforce (Wieczorek-Szymańska,
2017). The range of instruments to achieve it is wide, from flexible
working hours, working from home to job sharing for leadership roles
(Maj, 2017). Indeed, diversity can only improve the situation of the
company, as various employees with various backgrounds bring a fresh
look to the company that can result in advanced growth. The outcomes
of increasing diversity of managing boards may be used an example
to support such an observation (Hernik, 2014, Balina, 2016; Hernik
and Minguez-Vera, 2016, Hernik and Minguez-Vera, 2017). It is worth
mentioning that the image the company presents to the local society
104 Paulina Księżak, Barbara Fischbach
is crucial to its position against the competitors. The actions the busi-
nesses take for the benefit of the local communities frequently focus
on some forms of sponsoring, for example paying for the outfits of the
local football team, but they can also take form of training, donations
or simply recruiting (Idowu, Louche and Filho, 2010).
3.3. Planet
Planet is the habitat for a company and the people. If large corpora-
tions pollute the environment with their actions and drive the planet to
destruction, they will be equally affected as anything else on the Earth.
Natural environment is the responsibility of everyone, and primarily of
corporations, which are often the first reason for its damage. Irresponsi-
ble usage of natural resources, producing waste or emission of polluting
by-products are the dominant negative impacts of corporations on the
environment. Therefore the least those companies can do is to minimise
or eliminate the detrimental environmental impact (Gupta, 2011).
There are plenty of ways the business can be environmentally
friendly. First of all, it can make sure it produces goods that do not harm
the environment in any way. However, this is not possible for every
industry yet. For instance, automotive industry’s products emit great
amounts of CO2. New, more eco-friendly cars emerge, nevertheless
they still damage environment, but to a lesser extent. The action all
enterprises can conduct is a reduction of waste. In any business there
are countless ways of lessening the amount of use without thought, for
instance putting an end to unnecessary printing of emails or plainly
recycling. Enterprises that produce highly toxic waste should also take
all the necessary measures to diminish the level of toxicity and show
concern for suitable and law abiding off-load (Mullerat, 2010). Another
way to help the environment is to lessen the use of water and energy,
for example teach employees to always turn off the light in the rooms
that are not used at the moment. In general, responsibility towards the
environment brings more profit for the business in the long run. It is
also easier to measure the impact the company and its CSR policy has
on the environment than on society. In the work of Uddin et al. (2008)
the environmental responsibility is explained by two aspects: environ-
mental impact and the win-win situation (cf. Figure 3).
In the environmental impact they count all the harmful effects the
company has on the environment as a result of its daily operations.
Environmentally responsible business should therefore measure the
Triple Bottom Line: The Pillars of CSR 105
The WinWin
Environmental of
Impact Environmental
Responsibility
Planet
4. Discussion
Figure 4. Comparison of CSR areas classifications by United Nations Global Com-
pact, Bridgestone Corporation and ISO 26000 with the Triple Bottom Line model
Source: Own elaboration.
5. Conclusion
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