Whole Foods Market: Carroll's Corporate Social Responsibility

The company I chose to explore is Whole Foods and the corporate social responsibility (CSR) they adhere to. Corporate social responsibility, also known as CSR, means “a corporation’s initiatives to assess and take responsibility for the company’s effects on environmental and social well-being”, according to, Investopedia, (R., 2015). Whole foods are dedicated to contributing back to its people, community, and the environment while profiting as a company. CSR is just as important as their ethical practices including “green marketing” by utilizing the marketing of products believed to be preferably used by people which incorporate a number of activities such as, environmentally friendly packaging, sustainability, and modified advertising. The company’s reputation of what they offer, the treatment of their employees, behavior as a company, including the major factors of they represent across the marketplace is what they strive to exude.

Ethics is generally defined as “the standard of behavior by which conduct is judged”. In other words, individuals execute actions in different ways based on their ethical beliefs which are obtained by their personal moral principles. While we usually associate this notion to people, it can also be used for businesses. The latter can judged by potential customers, other firms, and many other different actors. Marketing plays an essential role in communicating and building judgements regarding a particular company. It generally showcases a company’s beliefs and values. It upholds them to their social responsibilities.

With sales of over thirty billion back in 2014, Publix is an American supermarket that has been listed on the top ten American’s largest private companies by Forbes in 2010. It is also the fourteenth largest retailer in America. Publix is privately owned and operated by its 176,500 employees, with its main base in Florida. However, “Publix has 1,103 stores in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina and North Carolina” (Publix Funding) as well. Publix super markets are always trying to be more sustainable and environmentally friendly. For example, they create recycling programs, make sustainable choices of where food is purchased, use reusable grocery bags instead of plastic bags, and so much more. In addition to being more sustainable, they partner with many charities, including: Feeding America Foundation, United Way, and Greenville Habitat. These are just a few of the forty affiliates that Publix has connected with.

Whole Foods has the Philanthropic Responsibility on Carroll’s global social responsibility pyramid, mainly for their involvement in educating employees, and customers on the importance of lifestyle changes in eating more organic, healthy foods. Moreover, Whole Foods involvement in volunteer work through the communities they serve; however,

Social responsibility in business can be defined as the obligation an organization has to minimize its negative social impact on stakeholders and to maximize its positive impact. In this case study we are introduced to a small local grocery chain referred to as Company Q. Located in a major metropolis, Company Q has recently closed some stores in areas of the city with higher crime-rates. They have started to stock a very limited amount of organic and health-conscience products after years of requests from their customers. Management has declined participating in a program to send expired food to a local food bank based on fears of employee theft by means of taking advantage of the situation. Based on the

Ben & Jerry’s is a renowned Ice Cream company which becomes a social enterprise icon since it was founded in 1978 (Kazs, Page, 2013).And it is claimed that Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is the best in the world for its comfortable environment, equitable system, and being kind to its cows by Time Magazine in 1981(Dennis et al, 1998).

This essay will analyse the strengths, limitations and challenges of ethical and socially responsible business practice. The purpose of this essay is to identify the advantages and limitations of following business ethics and act socially responsible in business operations. In order to help me analyse those further I will use the case study from food industry - McDonald’s corporation.

Whole Foods Market Inc. is a popular retail destination for natural and organic foods and byproducts, since its establishment in 1980 by four local businesspeople in Austin, Texas. It is notable for supporting sustainable agriculture, promoting the reduction of waste and consumption of nonrenewable resources and encouraging environmentally safe cleaning and store-maintenance programs. The company showcases its ethics and social responsibility through its green mission, foundations, and Whole Trade Guarantee.

For the rest of the meal I’ll still need tomato sauce, I need spinach leaves, onions, garlic cloves, pecans, and basil leaves. Fortunately the basil and pecan nuts are easier to acquire because I happen to have garden at my house which does produce both of these ingredients. As for the other ingredients, the rest is purchased at the store, the only distinction is a great deal of this is not packaged previously, instead it’s fresh produce so the manufacturing process is not the same. For several years, Kroger has operated with agriculturalists and contractors to transport locally produced merchandises to grocery stores. There are two main farms specifically in Arizona where Kroger does obtain some of their fresh vegetables. These include Rousseau

The final area that could be improved regarding the company’s attitude toward social responsibility is to offer a larger selection of health-conscience and organic products. Though these products come at a higher margin, the requests made by consumers show a demand for products of this type. By offering a better selection, Company Q demonstrates concern for the health and well-being of the community attracting new business and increasing profitability which by definition is socially responsible.

In business, Anne Lawrence and James Weber (2014) identify enlightened self-interest as a corporation’s recognition that using corporate resource to serve others, including customers, employees, and the community as a whole, is in the best interest of the company. This social responsibility enhances the company’s image within the community, which increases both customer loyalty and satisfaction of employees. Some of the ways that businesses serve others is through philanthropy and backing environmental sustainability. Within his lecture on ethics and corporate responsibility, Dr. Kahlib Fischer (n.d.) encourages the importance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in that it provides mutual benefit to both the organization and the community.

We will begin this paper discussing whether or not Company Q’s actions have been socially responsible. In the scenario Company Q has chosen to throw out day old food instead of allowing it to be donated. The reason for their decision was to deter theft from the employees who may take the food instead of actually donating it. This in my opinion is socially irresponsible of Company Q. Company Q’s store has indeed faced some challenges, seeing as it is in a high crime area. More often than not high crime areas are also low income areas, a combination that surely both directly and indirectly effects the profits of the store. Profits are important as any business needs to be profitable obviously, but it should never be at the expense of people. People are one of the most vital parts of any business as you need them as consumers, and of course aid in running the business as employees.

This essay is an ethnographic study of Whole Foods Market which is located in Kensington, London. Whole Foods Market is a niche supermarket that sells high quality organic and natural products at high prices. In this essay, I will provide a brief orientation of ethics with regards to the concepts of Corporate Social Responsibility - macroethics and Business Ethics - microethics and the theoretical frameworks of consequentialism, deontology and virtue ethics. I will be using deontology framework in ethics devised by Immanuel Kant to assess if the marketing strategy and the products sold at Whole Foods Market support their principle of ‘organic and natural’.

CSR is the concept that businesses should balance profit-making with activities that benefit society, as Bruce Dayton believed “businesses should act in the best interest of society” (Target, 2015). Accordingly, Target’s commitment is to design tomorrow’s Target through our value chain, building community and creating a great workplace. As such, its 5 core beliefs: innovation, leadership, growth, inclusivity, and community influence its ongoing commitment to CSR. Furthermore, they achieve this by concentrating on:

This paper will particularly focus on the food industry and will outline the ethical issue of food marketing towards children by reviewing the existing marketing ethics literature. The paper will evaluate the ethical responsibilities of marketing managers towards the issue of food marketing towards children and its impact. The paper will also explore and propose how managers of marketing can change their strategies to improve the ethical performance of the company by analyzing theories such as business ethics, social marketing and corporate social responsibility (CSR). It will discuss various theoretical approaches to marketing.