Royal Dutch Shell - Free Essay on Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate social responsibility according to Crowther & Aras (2008) is a situation whereby companies integrate the environmental and social concerns as they conduct their business, the concerns are addressed voluntarily. The concerns are shown to the stakeholders of the business through various strategies including partnering with the service provider and other stakeholders to address the concerns of interest. Royal Dutch Shell is an international company dealing with energy. Its business activities involve multiple companies and large monetary transactions. The company emphasizes on the social and economic responsibility of individual firms. The year 2014`s sustainability report is the fourth that the company has reported. The company enjoys mutually beneficial relationships with many companies. Its stakeholders include governments and private persons.

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Furthermore, the company analysis focuses on many different kinds of stakeholders that including buyers and suppliers. However, Shell deals with multinational distributors and interacts with multiple companies to import goods and complete business deals. According to Shell (2014), Shell has four major partnerships all with a scientific twist. These include Earth watch, IUCN, TNC, and Wetlands International. For instance, the International Union is for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) which is through this partnership shell has been able to achieve much success in the protection of biodiversity. To elaborate more, through the same partnership, Shell can be involved in actions leading to the creation of a conservational database. The IUCN also facilitates correctional activities regarding reversing the effects of oil spills on other issues. The company`s social cultural responsibilities are depicted in its engagements with locals. For instance, the company collaborates with the natural conservancy in Columbia to work on its objective of establishing self as an eco-friendly.

Most importantly, most of Royal Dutch partnerships are general as they seek to meet various dimensions of corporate social responsibility. It has equal responsibilities to its partners as the company pushes for its goals to the stakeholders to be met. It owns its agendas and performs in equal capacity to protect natural and the environment. Its partners are an important part of the company (Shell, 2014).

The Royal Dutch Company works with various stakeholders on different frontiers to ensure that critical issues affecting its stakeholders are addressed. The company follows international standards set by globally recognized bodies. Its social responsibilities have been dealt with in various dimensions.

The company has been able to address environmental concerns through various strategies, including collaborating with the local communities where it has operations, international bodies such as The International Union for Conservation of Nature. The Royal Dutch Company being aware of the impact its operation on the general environment has initiated various methods to reduce pollution. The effects of the product it deals with including gas and other petroleum products that have been confirmed to be the greatest releases of carbon that has been widely contributed to the current global warming crises; has made The Royal Dutch company at the forefront of reducing carbon emissions. Through redesigning the efficiency of its petroleum products to reduce the carbon content in them to helping maintaining transport networks to ensure efficient use of energy. Furthermore, the company is at the forefront of promoting carbon harvest, through sponsoring green environment where it partners with organizations that invest in tree planting for reduction of the atmospheric amount of carbon (Shell, 2014).

The Dutch Royal company engages with the different local communities it has operations. All the way from project identification to its evaluation local community participation is quite significant. According to Garrigac & Melec (2013) the local community is significantly involved in the initial stages of the project whereby the impact the project has to their lives is assessed and measures put in place to ensure that the adverse effects are adequately addressed. Furthermore, the company provides that the local community directly benefits from the companys activities in the community. From offering social services including health education and employment opportunities to community members to ensuring that any adverse impact of the companys operations are addressed timely and in a manner that is consistent with the interest of the local community. The Dutch Royal Company has within its structures employee mandated to ensure that the needs of the community are met. The employees taking care and handling the affairs of the local community are mostly handled by those knowledgeable of the needs of the community or employees drawn from the community. Voluntary services such as community clean up by the company and their partners ensure that the company is in good books with the locals thus gaining support for the operation (Shell, 2014).

The Royal Dutch Company together with its contractors and suppliers have a prior established relations that ensure that workers human rights are observed. The partnership ensures that no party uses the opportunity given to mistreat those that are in their service. It ensures that the partners foster the need to create local opportunities for the locals. Furthermore, the supplies and other partners are key stakeholders of the Royal Dutch Company that send a strong message to other stakeholders about what the company stands for (Shell, 2014).

The strategy used by the Royal Dutch Company for its corporate social responsibility is more of a standardized procedure whose aim is to cast its image and business positively. Social responsibility gives it an opportunity to address the mess that it creates through its business operation including the impact of global warming. For a business to do better its stakeholders have to be satisfied that the operations are indeed beneficial thus the need for CSR.

References

Crowther, D., & Aras, G. (2008). Corporate social responsibility. Copenhagen: Bookboon.

Garriga, E., & Mele, D. (2013). Corporate social responsibility theories: Mapping the territory. In Citation Classics from the Journal of Business Ethics(pp. 69-96). Springer Netherlands.

Shell (2014). SUSTAINABILITY REPORT. Retrieved 4 November 2015, from http://reports.shell.com/sustainability-report/2014/servicepages/downloads/files/entire_shell_sr14.pdf