Wal-Mart: Social Sustainability And Social Responsibility

In this highly competitive world, money is one of the most significant factors for people to survive because people use money to satisfy their desires such as clothes, food, and medicines. A company will gain profit from the amount of money that people used, but only profit cannot make company to be sustainable. Hence, every corporation should be concerned about the triple bottom lines which can lead company to be sustainable. The Triple Bottom line or TBL was created by the founder of British consultancy called sustainability, John Elkington since 1994 (economist, 2009). The triple bottom line is separately in three categories, including profit, planet, and people. Firstly, profit is an essential part of company to get good profit and challenge with others. Secondly, planet, corporations should be concerned about their environmental impacts. Lastly, people, companies should be concerned about consequences to communities. From my perspective, companies should balance these three categories, if they want to achieve their goals. This research paper will examine about the sustainability of Walt Disney Company base on triple bottom line.

The consumers have the ability to increase the environmental sustainability. When National Geographic researches about this issue, it got the statistic from many consumers around 18 countries (para.4.5). So it found a few of American consumers able to live sustainably, and they feel not so much guilt. In the contrary, the consumers of Chains and India promote to live sustainably, and they feel more guilt (para.6). However, the people cannot live sustainably without awareness about the sustainability and

This case study involves America’s largest and most recognizable retail chains. Walmart steadily grew from its founding in 1962 as a small Arkansas based retail store into the multi-national giant that it is today. One of the issues that Walmart’s unprecedented growth has raised is how it can maintain the ethical standards and principles held by its founder, Sam Walton, when it has grown past its humble roots and continues to grow in an ever more competitive and hectic world. Some of the current ethical issues that Walmart is facing are the treatment of its employees, the methods it employs to obtain retail goods at low prices, the sustainability of its products, and the use of bribery to further corporate interests (Ferrell

First and foremost, Whole Foods obtains many factors that make this company appealing to work for such as their focus on employees and not profit, social responsibilities, and aesthetic leadership. Whole Foods focus on employees is substantial to their success. They hire skilled, good people and they ensure that they succeed within the corporation (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013). Also, Whole Foods offers employee benefits, which in today’s economy, is becoming rarer by the day. Every year Whole Foods allows employees to elect different benefits, if everyone agrees on that benefit, it gets added on to their list of benefits (Davis, 2012).

Davis (as cited by Khalidah, Zulkufly, & Lau, 2014) defined Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as “… the firm’s consideration of, and response to, issues beyond the narrow economic, technical, and legal requirements of the firm. It is the firm’s obligation to evaluate in its decision-making processes the effects of its decisions on the external social system in a manner that will accomplish social benefits along with the traditional economic gains, which the firm seeks. It means that social responsibility begins where the law ends. A firm is not being socially responsible if it merely complies with the minimum requirements of the law, because this is what any good citizen would do.” A firm will not survive without the support of both the stakeholders and shareholders, thus the CSR proposes the indication which stats that a firm can never exist In a vacuum (Khalidah et.

Businesses have been playing a crucial role in people’s lives. No matter what they go or what the occupations they are; people are drawn to get involved in businesses. However, behind the scenes of the business thriving, the environment is deteriorated each day. Many development schemes are come up with the plan related with the depletion of the environment (Shah, 2002). Because of people and environmental damages, attentions were drawn to corporations for ensuring their sustainabilities. John Elkington designed a framework called Triple Bottom Line(TBL) (cite), which allows employees or entrepreneurs to adopt it for evaluating their performances regarding three dimensions people, planet, and profit. Starbucks is one of successful corporations which uses the Triple Bottom Line. The underlying Starbucks’s policy is to "inspire and nurture the human spirit-- one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time" ( Herbeck, 2012). The statement which was previously mentioned shows that Starbucks does not solely concentrate upon their profits, but their stakeholders’ well beings and the environment as well. This firm tries to launch many campaigns based on the three factors of the Triple Bottom Line. As a result, when it comes to Triple Bottom Line framework, Starbucks was given the opportunity to appraise and monitor its operations.

Walmart Stores, Inc. - the American corporation which was established in 1962, is well-know for the globe’s largest multinational retailer (Walmart 2016). Walmart owns a chain of grocery stores, discount department stores and hypermarkets with about 11,500 retail stores over 28 countries. In 1998, Walmart entered Germany with the acquisition of Wertkauf and Interspar chain (Louisa 2006). Despite having the strongest economy in Europe and the third largest retail market in the world, Germany was not an ideal place for Walmart to achieve its ambition (Knorr and Andt 2003). After nearly a decade struggling to grow, Walmart decided to pull out of German market in 2006 with the loss of one billion dollars (Mark 2006).

It is the firm’s obligation to evaluate in its decision-making processes the effects of its decisions on the external social system in a manner that will accomplish social benefits along with the traditional economic gains, which the firm seeks. It means that social responsibility begins where the law ends. A firm is not being socially responsible if it merely complies with the minimum requirements of the law, because this is what any good citizen would do.” A firm will not survive without the support of both the stakeholders and shareholders, thus the CSR proposes the indication which states that a firm can never exist In a vacuum (Khalidah et. al.).

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) relates to the actions of an organization and the effects on the environment and social wellbeing. It is about the way that the company assesses its actions and takes responsibility for this. (Investopedia, n.d.) CSR is a management concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental issues in their business operations and interactions with stakeholders . The company aims to achieve a balance of economic, environmental and social objectives, while also listening to the needs of stakeholders. (UNIDO, n.d.)

Sustainability has been mentioned as a goal of businesses. During the mid 1990s John Elkington created the triple bottom line plan under the concept of sustainability. Sustainability can be defined in many ways, but the simplest way is “Ability to sustain” (Sustainability, 2010). The triple bottom line is an accounting framework, and there are three dimensions of sustainability among them people, planet and profit (3Ps). The concept of TBL is to measure the profitable, social and environmental performance of the company. Currently, many companies have tried to become more sustainable in terms of the TBL. However, this report will identify the clearly observable of the triple bottom line in L’Oréal company.

On product packaging, they have marked on environmental policies, including the volume and weight loss related to containers and packaging, manual, and to reduce the thickness of continuous improvement. Furthermore, they are renewable resources effectively utilized.

This critique is a reflection of Strategic Industry Analysis of clothing Industry in United Kingdom, Italy and France. To achieve such aims, data were collected, reviewed and analyzed within the industry. By so doing, primary tools were exploited to give an in-depth information, these include: Orbis database, companies' web pages as well as academic and non-academic literatures. Due to limited information from countries' perspective (language barriers), this paper will analyze the European union clothing industry as a whole, in term of the development, the competitiveness and the disparity between top and bottom players in regards to financial performance.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) relates to the actions of an organization and the effects on the environment and social wellbeing. It is about the way that the company assesses its actions and takes responsibility for this. (Investopedia, n.d.) CSR is a management concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental issues in their business operations and interactions with stakeholders. The company aims to achieve a balance of economic, environmental and social objectives, while also listening to the needs of stakeholders. (UNIDO, n.d.)

A final benefit of eco-friendly packaging is the way that it improves their brand image. When clients learn that they use environmentally friendly resources, this will show them that they not only care about the environment, but also that they are a responsible company. This improved brand image will lead to an increase in sales, furthering their company’s profits.

Business ethics refers to what is right and wrong, good and bad, harmful and beneficial regarding decisions and actions in organizational transactions (Weiss, 2009).