Corporate Social Responsibility of Coca Cola Amatil †Sample Solution

Questions: 1. Using the example of the chosen company, assess the 3 Corporate Social Responsibility factors that influence corporate activities of your chosen company in the area of ecological sustainability. They are: economic, ethical and discretionary. 2. Based on Readings, design a sustainability plan for that company (for example you can focus on clean technology, sustainability vision, pollution prevention, product stewardship, etc). While creating the plan remember to include aims, objectives, strategies, tactics and evaluation. If the company already has a clear sustainability portfolio, analyse it according to the above criteria and suggest possible improvements for each. 3. Examine the possible advantages and difficulties in integrating your sustainability portfolio into the companys strategy. Answers: Task 1: Corporate Social Responsibility of Coca Cola Amatil Coca Cola started its business in the year 1886 in the form of a localized soda producer in Atlanta, Georgia and sold near about nine beverages each day. By the year 1920, the company started expanding at an international level and started selling its products first in the Caribbean and in the Canadian market and made further movement into Asia, Europe, South America and Soviet Union (Dorfman et al. 2012). At the end of the 20th century the Coca Cola company was selling its products all over the world, and almost all the countries in the world became a consume of the products of Coca Cola. According to the statistics of 2005, it came out to be the largest manufacturer and marketer of the non-alcoholic beverages and syrups in the whole world (Torres et al. 2012). The Corporate Social Responsibility of Coca Cola Amatil in accordance with the economic, ethical and discretionary framework can be stated as follows, The Coca Cola Amatil provided its consumers with the significantly high quality of products such as food and beverages. The core policy of the company is to meet the regulatory guidelines regarding foods as effectively as possible. In the context of manufacturing Coca Cola Amatil depends largely on the super efficient management system and technologies along with trained personnel (Brammer et al. 2012). This makes sure that the products produced by the company overshoots all the company standards as well as meet all the legal requirements also. The top product quality concern of the company is the product variability at the time of production and age of stock in the market. A stringent focus on the process control by introducing the online process control method and Coke Best Fresh programme were the key strategy of the company to provide its customers with the best quality products. Moreover, the Coca Cola Amatil continued its development by engaging with its stakeholder groups in a number of ways through various formal and informal settings. The engagement of the company starts from meetings with local, regional and national level based groups to discuss matters with the bottlers, consumers and suppliers (Lim and Tsutsui 2012). If considered at an international level the company is involved with a number of stakeholder activities. These activities include United Nations Global Compact and the World Economic Forum for addressing the global challenges. Again, according to Bauman and Skitka (2012), by maintaining active relationship with the external stakeholders the Coca Cola Amatil has become able to determine and solve issues by uniting the expertise, knowledge and skills of various organizations as well as individuals. This approach in turn helps the company to put on a positive impact on the economic, environmental and social issues. The engagement of the company with its stakeholders gives rise to a number of results that is favorable for the environment as well as the company. Regarding maintaining the sustainability of water the company aims at protecting the local sources of water. This can only be successful if the company involves with the local stakeholders along with the government, members of the communities, water agencies and various other NGOs. The bottling partner of Coca Cola Amatil implements the Source water protection plan, they involves the local stakeholders and thereby serve the local communities, ecosystems as well as the business (Uhrich et al. 2014). In the context of sustainable agriculture, the company aimed at engaging all the suppliers of the key elements in 2014 with the help of new Supplier Engagement Programme. This programme simply provides a framework of seven stages of improvement in order to reach sustainable agriculture principles. Provided that the complex nature of the recent health and environmental issues it is challenging for any business in fact for any industry as well. Therefore, the industry connects across partnerships and this is called the Golden Triangle of business (Yelkikalan and Kse 2012). The golden triangle of business is applied to the stakeholders engagement at work. Public and private society sectors as well. The company believes that the power of achievement of these companies is higher because of this collaboration. The Golden Triangle of Partnership is considered as the core corporate social responsibility of Coca Cola Amatil. This will help the company to attain sustainable business, environmental stewardship as well as social progress (Sharma and Kiran 2012). Task 2: Sustainability Plan of Coca Cola Amatil The Coca Cola Amatil produces and distributes some of the best drinks in the world. the company believes that they should do so in an sustainable manner. As corporate social responsibility is the core of the business, the company has made significant progress in this aspect. It has become successful in reducing the environmental impact along with the amount of water it uses and packaging as well as reducing the carbon emissions as well (Sharma and Kiran 2012). Coca Cola Amatil is currently satisfied with these achievements and is trying to develop its further sustainability plan based on these achievements. Now, in order to develop a sustainable future for tomorrow, it is essential for the company to reduce its impacts on the environment (Sharma and Kiran 2012). The company is currently implementing changes in every stage that are associated with its value chain, that is from the collection of raw materials to the after effects of enjoying a beautiful drink. The broader vision of the company in establishing the sustainability plan is low carbon and zero waste. This a quite clear vision for that particular type of business that the company wants to become in near future (Karnani 2013). Therefore, Coca Cola Amatil engages its employees, customers and suppliers as well as the communities for creating a difference. This ranges from finding a new way to conserve water to promoting recycling of resources along with establishing healthy lifestyles in the locality. Therefore, it is quite evident that by doing thgis the company is making a direct contribution environmental, social economic framework of the communities in which the company is currently operating (Strand 2013). In order to make changes in the sustainability, it is necessary for the company is looking beyond its operations and taking responsibility for the entire life cycle of each of their products. The aim of the company is to establish a low carbon, zero waste future where the company will use sustainable resources (Strand 2013). Now, as the vision of the company is clear, it now requires a roadmap that will help the company to establish the correct balance between the short-term achievements and long-term expectations. Coca Cola Amatil with a previously determined mission and visions as well as targets should stretch its business. it is believed that the company will be able to achieve these targets by 2020 (Strand 2013), with the help of hard work and innovation. The company has also designed a proper roadmap for achieving these targets. Priority 1: Deliver for today The targets of the Corporate Social Responsibility of the company will remain at bottom of what the company does. Each of the commitment made by the company is measured on a regular basis in accordance with a number of key performance indicators. The progress of the company in accordance with these key performance indicators will be published in the annual report and based on that progress report the company will take further necessary steps (Zyglidopoulos et al. 2012). Priority 2: Leading the industry As the company wants to display its best practices across all the commitments, it is believed that the company will be able to bring about changes in two sectors energy and change in climate and sustainability in packaging and recycling (Boulouta and Pitelis 2014). Being a manufacturing and distributing unit it is quite convenient for the company to design a carbon and waste declining programme and thereby becoming the leader of the industry. Priority 3: Innovation for future The commitments of the company are ambitious enough and it is quite natural that the Coca Cola Amatil alone will not be able to meet all of the ambitions. However, it is believed that the collaboration of the company with a wide range of partners will allow it to achieve these targets in near future by innovating in future (Arnold and Valentin 2013). Lowering of Carbon emission: The company is committed to reduce the carbon footprints in its drinks by one third by reducing the use of carbon in the entire value chain. In order to achieve this changes it is necessary for the company to look beyond the operations of the company and take entire responsibility for the whole product value chain. Coca Cola Amatil is committed to reduce the carbon footprints of its product by one third by the end of 2020 than that of it was in the year 2007 (Yin and Zhang 2012). This will be done by setting up an average carbon footprint for all of its products and packaging formats in the entire value chain. Therefore, it clearly signifies that the company should buy sustainable ingredients, packaging products and the way these products are transported as well as the disposal of these products. The company will focus on delivering carbon reduction activities across its value chain and they will focus more on clear measurement, excellence in operation and continual improvement as well (Murphy and Schlegelmilch 2013). For example the company is concerned about the fact that chilling its products. Therefore, the target of the company is to reduce this carbon emission by 35% by 2014. The company is also planning to source 35% its energy from renewable resources that also emits less carbon in the environment. Collaborating with other suppliers will also help the company to reduce the carbon footprints in the nature. Coca Cola Amatil has challenged the other suppliers to compare their carbon footprints with them, thereby work with them in collaboration, and thereby reduce the carbon footprint as a whole. Zero waste The company is committed to set standard of sustainable packaging and thereby achieve zero waste emission by its operation and recycle more of the packaging than the company uses. Another goal of the company is to develop a standard in low carbon and sustainable packaging (Ogola and Dreer 2012). The company plans to achieve this target by making use of renewable and recyclable raw materials. The company will continue to innovate and also use the expertise of the company in this regard. Therefore, it clearly means that the company will look after each and every aspect of the products, such as from packaging to design, recyclability of the contents used etc (Baur and Schmitz 2012). By the end of 2020, the company is aimed at reducing 25% materials it uses for production across all the formats of packaging. Moreover, the company has also planned that in every four of its pet bottle one will be a recycle pet along with a plan pet (Vallaster et al. 2012). By 2014, the company has planned to achieve zero waste and will not send the wastes for the purpose of land filling. Again, the company is also committed to recycle more of its packaging product that it uses. The company plans to do this by ensuring that amount of recyclable materials collected by national collection schemes taken with the amount of materials collected by the Coca Cola Amatil initiatives is greater than that of the amount of packaging the company currently uses (Whelan 2012). Task 3: Advantages and Disadvantages of the Sustainability Plan In order to understand the possible advantages and difficulties that are associated with implementation of these strategies of the company, it is necessary to get an overview of the commitments that have been made by the company. The commitments made by the company is stated below briefly, Energy and Climate Change: The company is aimed at reducing the carbon footprint in the drinks it produces and thereby reduce carbon across the entire value chain. Sustainability of packaging and promoting recycling: The company is aimed at setting up a standard of sustainability in packaging and thereby reaches zero waste in their operability. It is also focused on recycling more packaging than that of the amount it uses (Vallaster et al. 2012). Water Stewardship: The company will set up the standards of efficiency in the use of water and minimize the impact of use of water on the value chain of the company. The company has reviewed the commitments that it has made and therefore evaluated whether these commitments are reached or not. In the context of changes in climate or energy, the target of the company was to reduce the carbon footprint in its drinks and that too within 2020 (Vallaster et al. 2012). Reduction of the carbon footprints in the core business, this was to increase or grow the business by 15% and thereby reduce the carbon footprint. The company aimed to do so within 2020. Another target of the company was to reduce 50% of its carbon emission from every liter of its production. This will also be completed within 2020 (Vallaster et al. 2012). The company plans to deliver a product case with reduced carbon emission of 20% along with reducing the emission of carbon by 35% from the cold drinks. Coca Cola Amatil plans to do so within 2014. Coca Cola Amatil will reduce the amount of materials it currently uses by 25% and again the materials should be recyclable. Currently this target is under processing, as the company is using recyclable materials and planned to reduce the materials by the end of 2020 (Yin and Zhang 2012). Coca Cola Amatil has set several other strategies for the successful implementation of corporate social responsibility. These strategies include product portfolio, endorsing active and healthy living, engaging the stakeholders by which the company contributed in an social and economic manner (Yin and Zhang 2012). Moreover, the company also looked after the workplace where the employees of the company work. It has aimed at establishing workforce diversity and safety of the workers as well. Moreover, it also allows its employees a 100% accessibility of health care and wellbeing programmes. The company has not only set up these targets but also monitored whether they are met and the level of progress in this regard. These strategies have helped the company to grow in an efficient manner as well as maintaining the proper corporate social responsibility towards the environment. This sustainability plan of Coca Cola Amatil clearly depicts that the company is strictly focused on the well-being of the environment of the locality in which it operates (Yin and Zhang 2012). Therefore, it has planned to reduce the use of non-recyclable materials as well as non-renewable energies. This has enabled the company to bestow a sustainable future upon the upcoming generation. This can be considered as the greatest contribution of the company towards the environment (Yin and Zhang 2012). Regarding the problem associated with this sustainability plan it can be said that the time plan to execute some of the strategies is too long and it cannot be evaluated how much progress have been made in this regard. Therefore, it will be convenient to focus on the short term targets and thereby determine the position of the company in the context of corporate social responsibility. Reference List Arnold, D.G. and Valentin, A., 2013. Corporate social responsibility at the base of the pyramid. Journal of business research, 66(10), pp.1904-1914. Balmer, J.M., 2012. Corporate Brand Management Imperatives. California Management Review, 54(3), pp.6-33. Bauman, C.W. and Skitka, L.J., 2012. Corporate social responsibility as a source of employee satisfaction. Research in Organizational Behavior, 32, pp.63-86. Baur, D. and Schmitz, H.P., 2012. Corporations and NGOs: When accountability leads to co-optation. Journal of Business Ethics, 106(1), pp.9-21. Boulouta, I. and Pitelis, C.N., 2014. Who needs CSR? The impact of corporate social responsibility on national competitiveness. Journal of Business Ethics, 119(3), pp.349-364. Brammer, S., Jackson, G. and Matten, D., 2012. Corporate social responsibility and institutional theory: New perspectives on private governance. Socio-Economic Review, 10(1), pp.3-28. Dorfman, L., Cheyne, A., Friedman, L.C., Wadud, A. and Gottlieb, M., 2012. Soda and tobacco industry corporate social responsibility campaigns: how do they compare?. PLoS Med, 9(6), p.e1001241. Karnani, A.G., 2013. Corporate Social Responsibility Does Not Avert the Tragedy of the Commons--Case Study: Coca-Cola India. Ross School of Business Paper, (1210). Lim, A. and Tsutsui, K., 2012. Globalization and commitment in corporate social responsibility cross-national analyses of institutional and political-economy effects. American Sociological Review, 77(1), pp.69-98. Murphy, P.E. and Schlegelmilch, B.B., 2013. Corporate social responsibility and corporate social irresponsibility: Introduction to a special topic section. Journal of Business Research, 66(10), pp.1807-1813. Ogola, F.O. and Dreer, T., 2012. Market share as an indicator for corporate social responsibility (CSR) spending: The study of Coca Cola's market. African Journal of Business Management, 6(6), p.2234. Sharma, A. and Kiran, R., 2012. Corporate social responsibility initiatives of major companies of India with focus on health, education and environment. African Journal of Basic Applied Sciences, 4(3), pp.95-105. Strand, R., 2013. The chief officer of corporate social responsibility: A study of its presence in top management teams. Journal of Business Ethics, 112(4), pp.721-734. Torres, A., Bijmolt, T.H., Trib, J.A. and Verhoef, P., 2012. Generating global brand equity through corporate social responsibility to key stakeholders. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 29(1), pp.13-24. Uhrich, S., Koenigstorfer, J. and Groeppel-Klein, A., 2014. Leveraging sponsorship with corporate social responsibility. Journal of Business Research, 67(9), pp.2023-2029. Vallaster, C., Lindgreen, A. and Maon, F., 2012. Strategically leveraging corporate social responsibility. California Management Review, 54(3), pp.34-60. Whelan, G., 2012. The political perspective of corporate social responsibility: A critical research agenda. Business Ethics Quarterly, 22(04), pp.709-737. Yelkikalan, N. and Kse, C., 2012. The effects of the financial crisis on corporate social responsibility. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 3(3). Yin, J. and Zhang, Y., 2012. Institutional dynamics and corporate social responsibility (CSR) in an emerging country context: Evidence from China. Journal of Business Ethics, 111(2), pp.301-316. Zyglidopoulos, S.C., Georgiadis, A.P., Carroll, C.E. and Siegel, D.S., 2012. Does media attention drive corporate social responsibility?. Journal of Business Research, 65(11), pp.1622-1627.