The global business community should rescue humanity from this saga of darkness. With CSR, we need to practise the personal social responsibility (PSR) so as to inculcate good old habits to first save the family, then neighbourhood and finally the community
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is the alignment of business activities with social values. It is not an optional or an add-on function to the core activities of any corporate houses. Conceptually, the CSR is all about the way any business is managed, and that is managing fairly, with an eye on its social responsibilities. Further, the CSR focuses on the social, environmental and financial success of an enterprise i.e. the so-called “Triple Bottom Line”, with an objective to fulfill social development without compromising its business interests.
Now at a time when the whole world is almost trampled down by the Covid-19, it is the right moment for the global business community to step in and rescue humanity from this saga of darkness. Business and governance are intimately connected. The historic role of the public-private partnership is not new to us. But around this time, it is not only partnering with the public institutions, but also helping employees, stakeholders and consumers together manage sustainability is the prime challenge of the business organisations. Put it simply, all of them are in crisis today.
The responsibility demonstrated by the corporate community is no less than that of the public institutions, if not greater. Both in times of crises and peace, the business enterprises have resolutely stood behind the governments around the world, barring a few exceptions. For the business community, such crises are even moments of opportunities as well.
Thinking and labeling business organisations as social units as evoked by Peter F Drucker, we can certainly underline their responsibilities towards society. He was right in highlighting that “businesses, even fairly small ones, will have to start their strategic thinking and planning with the world economy rather than with their own domestic economy”. Therefore, any crisis that takes place in any corner of the globe can easily affect trade activities. Such is the case with the outbreak of the Covid-19 that originated in Wuhan in China that the pandemic has spread to all the 189 nations across the world.
This has further resulted into a historic economic downturn with massive loss of workforce, income, unreasonable working hours, breakdown of supply chains and hunger, accompanied by death of lakhs of people around.
The need of the hour is performing socially responsible business. And this can well be performed by them after delivering on to their core trading activities. Absolutely, a corporate juggernaut is the need of the hour. It’s not just to counter the current Covid-19, but simply to push society to a sustainable future. The term “CSR”, coined by American economist Howard Bowen three generations ago, is now made into strategic decision making by the international business community.
Both at global and local stages, the CSR has become a standard and even a unique yardstick to deal with customers, stakeholders and the employees of the business enterprises. It is also a tool to measure how well a brand or a company could interact with its stakeholders. Today, the digital age has changed the way we use to receive information. This age is democratising information and delivering it to more and more, probably to millions in micro-seconds. Our consumers and ordinary people are waking up to the realities within no time. No wonder that in today’s world how our social media outlets like Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram can influence billion dollar industries of Hollywood with # MeToo Campaign. Again, with the outbreak of the Arab Spring in 2011, we can witness the sweeping changes that have come over from far away Tunisia to the rest of the West Asia. These events have very well proved that commoners are no easy goers and they need to be engaged wherever possible.
What has been a permanent trend in business today is that rising number of consumers and stakeholders are talking and making sense about human rights, environment protection, sustainable development and social justice. Covid-19 is seemed to be an unchartered territory for the corporates. But in practice, it is not. This planet has seen many such crises like the Spanish flu of 1918, Zika virus, etc.
Currently, if we glean knowledge from our life-altering circumstances, we can very well realise that our institutions can do much more than what they are displaying at the moment. And, perfectly, it goes far beyond responding to this visible pandemic. The reason behind is that they are truly capable and they know their job more than others do. Therefore, a myriad of business organisations and their consistent efforts to ease out the burden of Governments across the globe is simply a reflection of their embedded responsibility only.
Apart from this, we must argue here that measly efforts from individuals may not help save this planet. The time has arrived for a road ahead to personal social responsibility (PSR). With CSR, we need to practise this PSR so as to inculcate good old habits to first save the family, then neighborhood and finally the community.
The PSR indicates what once Gandhi said, “The future depends on what you do today”. If we don’t make any change now, it is just impossible to make changes in the future. And this creates more inroads for our future generations and for humanity to march ahead. It’s the right time to stand behind each person who has suffered and/ or has lost the dear ones and those frontline workers who have come out to save our lives.
It’s the only way that we can save future lives and can renew our hopes for a fresh beginning. When the business enterprises set their plans, policies, goals accompanied by activities to deliver their social responsibilities, we need to have same high standards to perform our PSRs. It starts from maintaining our social distancing at neighborhood to public gatherings. What we expect from the trading communities must reflect in our PSRs so as to demonstrate our basic minimum duties to save lives at this time of Covid-19.
Hence, urging the corporates to be more responsible is absolutely fine. But they are also human organisations at their core. Without leaving all to them, governments must see to it that their relevance is not lost at all. Covid-19 is not about surrendering duties and responsibilities to the big business magnates in the name of performing CSR. All public offices and functionaries have to ensure that a fair play is practiced, resources are properly distributed, the long arm of the State is present in the remotest corners of the country and the poor and the economically vulnerable are not at the mercy of the powerful.
(The writer is an Associate Professor at Jindal Global Law School, OP Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana)
