Corporate Social Responsibility Evaluation For Wal Mart Stores Essay

The evolving practices around corporate social responsibility (CSR) provide dynamic, and complex opportunities for business. Overall, businesses are modifying their core purpose from creating shareholder profit toward creating shared value across their stakeholders, with shareholders being only one of the many stakeholders. This paper analyzes the 74th ranked 2014 Fortune Global 500 Company Kroger. Kroger started in 1883 as a local Cincinnati, Ohio grocery store, and has expended to be the second largest retail grocery store in the United States, and fifth largest in the world, owning retail food and drug stores, jewelry stores, and convenience stores in the United States (Kroger, 2015). Kroger remains headquartered in Ohio. An overview of Kroger, and specifically Kroger’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy and implementation will be discussed, followed by a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) CSR analysis informing a concluding plan to enhance Kroger’s CSR maturity.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a very controversial topic. A question that has been debated for the past few decades is; is it corporately viable to introduce social responsibility as a proposed addition to the work ethic of business organisations. As well as, if adopting the framework of corporate social responsibility would yield positive improvements for those organisations.

Wal-Mart uses its resources in research since before (2011-2012) for the sole purpose of coming up with new ideas and new ways to sustain itself in the local and global community. Locally it provides electricity in stores from solar panels and wind turbines. “Wal-Mart has taken strides to obtain its sustainability objectives. It has opened two environmentally friendly stores in McKinney, Texas, and Aurora, Colorado.” The company hopes that these experiments will conserve natural resources, save energy, and reduce pollution. In addition, Wal-Mart is attempting to reduce fossil fuel. Its fleet of hybrid trucks is a new technology for going “green (Ferrell, Fraedrich, Ferrell, 2011).” Similarly, Wal-Mart is “Currently working on four main green areas: waste improvement and recycling, natural resources, energy, and social/community impact. Wal-Mart’s long-term goals are to be supplied 100 percent by renewable energy, create zero

Although not all companies are successful at truly embodying what it means to be green, even companies that have been synonymous for contributing pollutants and greenhouse gasses spend millions trying to convince stakeholders that they do. It’s often these last two dimensions of CSR—social and environmental, that either embroil a corporation in controversy or allow it to serve as an exemplar in good ethical business practices.

Wal-mart may be a topic of controversy but they also have a huge effect on the scale of global social responsibility.

Target CSR practice is based on four key areas: inspiring wellness; fostering sustainability; championing inclusion; and investing in communities (Target Corporate). In a nutshell, this paper will focus more on how Target has fostered sustainability. Target has been working to improve environmental and social impact through its product design and development, operations and manufacturing for decades. It is notable that 76 percent of Target locations are certified as Energy Star. In 2015, the company minimized its water consumption by 17.1 percent per square foot. However, Target was not able to accomplish minimize greenhouse gas emission by 49 percent per million dollars of retail transactions. It managed to minimize only 47.6 percent. At

At one time, Sears prided itself as “Where America Shops” by staying in touch with consumers and upholding high product, employer, and customer standards. Today, Sears is struggling to remain a prominent American retailer. The company’s present business model reflects a poor grasp of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Riddled with lawsuits, workplace issues, and a poor reputation with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Sears consumers know today is undesirable.

In 2005, “Wal-Mart took a leading role in disaster relief, contributing $18 million and 2,450 truckloads of supplies to victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita”. In addition, Wal-Mart strongly believes in supporting our service members and veterans. Along with Wal-Mart’s charitable contributions, it has “made a major commitment to environmental sustainability, announcing goals to create zero waste, use only renewable energy and sell products that sustain people and the environment” (Wal-Mart, 2015). Even though this retail giant exceeds its competitors in profits and revenues and, is a very charitable organization, it still faces many

Kroger’s key strengths are strong ties to the communities they serve, diversity within and across the supply chain, and fostering innovation with food waste uses that both help their community as well as reduce overall carbon footprint. By involving their supply chain with food waste, Kroger expands its sphere of influence to ensure all biomaterial is reused, either to feed the hungry, livestock, or to reduce carbon footprint. Kroger’s engagement with small businesses also fosters a climate of innovation, along the full supply chain. Collaborating across the community and the supply chain bolsters Kroger’s ability to positively meet their zero waste goals while enlarging opportunities for small businesses, specifically minority and women owned business, via innovation in the supply chain. Kroger’s leadership in this are provides opportunities for all businesses in

Yes, I think that Wal-Mart is exceeding to become more sustainable. Wal-Mart is one of the top corporations and it is continuing to grow exponentially. There are three sustainability goals that Wal-Mart has put out to the public, and currently they are meeting every one of them. Among Wal-Mart’s sustainability goals are its intentions to be supplied entirely by renewable energy, create no waste, and sell products that sustain people and the environment (Ferrell, Fraedrich, Ferrell). At the end of 2013 Wal-Mart had more than 300 energy projects which provided more than 2.2

In contrast, many people and organizations have argued that Walmart is not holding true to their original sustainable commitments. According to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Walmart's greenhouse gas emissions have continued to grow over the last 10 years, and it’s percentage of renewable energy is inadequate compared to other major corporations. Stacy Mitchell, the author of the report and a senior researcher at the Institute believes that the core issue behind Walmart’s lack of action is that they will not change their unsustainable business model to make sustainable advancements. She says that, "Walmart has a highly unsustainable business model, built on shipping goods long distances, selling mountains of very short-lived products,

Employees are a large part of what make up organizations and they play a vital role within the stakeholders of a company. In order for an company to conceive socially responsible goals, they must focus within their organizations structure and make sure their stakeholders needs are attained, specifically the employees working for them. Companies wouldn 't exist without employees who work and interact with their products, customers and suppliers on a day to day basis. David Chandler and William B. Werther, Jr. present the case study of John Lewis Partnership in their book, Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility, to illustrate an example of a company that strives to keep their employees a central priority in their organization. The John Lewis Partnership has a unique way of viewing the roles their employees play within the firm that has allowed their overall business to be a major success. The revolutionary concept has pioneered a new way that companies and other organizations strive to incorporate into their business strategy.

Due to increasing environmental imbalances, it is necessary for firms to achieve competitive advantages in the area of environmental convergence as well. Wal-Mart is putting continuous efforts from a long time for environment sustainability and energy conservation. It also received Aspen Institute Energy and Environment award for Corporate Energy Efficiency in 2009. Here are a few steps that Wal-Mart has taken to encourage environmental sustainability:

Wal-Mart now has to rebuild their images, procedures on how they conduct business nationwide and how the use ethical business practices. The New York time article reported, “Wal-Mart announces new ethical and environmental principles complete by 2012”. (Robinson, 2008)

This is essay will focus on analyzing how corporate social responsibility (CSR) influences the investor relations of a corporation and whether it is good for the society, using Gasland and FrackNation as examples. In the contemporary society, CSR sounds like a commendatory term for the society. Over decades, it seems like that both the public and the media are trying to encourage corporations to behave more responsibly, and corporations are gradually becoming more socially aware in the contemporary society because they know they cannot afford the consequence of ignoring it. (Bernstein, 2009:606) However, CSR is not always beneficial. One of the major practices of public relations is investor relations, because the concerns of a corporation’s investors can directly relate to its welfare. When the corporations paid more attention on CSR, their investors will inevitably somehow feel ignored. As a public which has real material input to the corporations, investors are seeking for future returns, they want to be treated specially by the corporations that they invest. Also, value too much about CSR can make corporations become the victim of being morally hijacked, which may harm both a corporation’s financial success and the whole society’s harmony.