Business and Social Responsibility

Many people complain about the terrible things we’re doing to our world. But one problem that we just can’t seem to help is the fact that there are more and more people in the world population every year. Realistically, this has the largest impact on any given nation’s economy. More people means the need to create more jobs; more jobs means the need to further spread money and resources, both natural and man-made; and most of all, it means the need to monitor the changes over time. Below is a video time lapse of different parts of our world and the effects humans have had on it.



Now, I bet you’re wondering how people, global climate changes, and jobs, all relate. Well it comes down to the social responsibility every individual and business should be obligated to uphold. Social responsibility is a way to ensure mutualistic symbiotic relationships. These type of relationships are the scientific way to describe situations and circumstances where everyone involved can benefit. Making sure that more good than harm occurs throughout all of our business transactions is a tricky subject however.

For example, Nokia is rated as one of the world’s most socially responsible companies by Maclean’s, a Canadian current events magazine. This rating is because of Nokia’s efforts to eliminate harmful chemicals to the environment from their products, such as Bromine and Chlorine, as well as divert any waste they do incur away from landfills. Therefore, their transactions are beneficial to the environment and provide customers with products that are already built with sustainable technology. Featured below is a graphic from one of Nokia’s business reports on the subject.

(Source: http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/flow/item/17539_Nokia_publishes_corporate_soci.php)

Nokia is also a firm which students in our program have become very familiar with through our Innovative Marketing Strategies course by researching their new relationship with Microsoft and potential ways to build innovative strategies. Hopefully there will be ways for the two companies to maintain these sustainable efforts.

It is important when making business decisions to think of the larger impact certain products will have on both the environment and the consumers which we are targeting, another aspect of our course studies covered throughout Research and Decision Making, as well as Ethics and the Regulatory Environment. By utilizing these skills, we can practice more conscientious marketing tactics and execute more sustainable business plans.

Christine Drpich
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School