All companies should have a corporate social responsibility policy. This tells the world what you’re doing to try and have a positive impact on the wider world. What practices are you following to ensure you don’t create a negative effect on society?
Plenty of things can be part of this policy, but we believe that sustainability and recycling should be a top priority. They are so crucial for your CSR policy, and we’re here to explain why:
Businesses must be wary of their environmental impact
Think about the whole idea of a CSR policy for a second. The words ‘corporate social responsibility’ are used to describe various acts and things that you must follow to operate lawfully and ethically. This includes your impact on the environment.
Every business needs to be proactive and reduce their carbon footprint while minimising waste production. It’s not just a suggestion, it’s something you have to do to reduce your negative impact on the planet.
Otherwise, you could argue that you’re failing your duty to operate ethically. Is a business really ethical if it pollutes the atmosphere with a massive carbon footprint and generates far more waste than it needs to? The answer is simple, it’s not.
So, from this perspective, sustainability and recycling are important for your CSR policy as they help you improve your environmental efforts. You frame yourself as an ethical company because you’re actively putting rules and regulations in place that reduce your carbon footprint and help you minimise your waste.
Improve employee and customer engagement
Another reason that recycling is valuable to your CSR is that it improves engagement. If you implement policies that encourage your employees to recycle and be green, then it helps engage them more. It’s inspiring to work for a company with a progressive mindset who puts recycling and sustainability at the forefront of their CSR policy. Your employees will be proud to work for you, and proud to tell others about the great things their company is doing to be more environmentally friendly.
Employee engagement is critical for all businesses as it makes them more driven and more keen to work. Their performance improves, but you also improve your employee retention – which saves money!
Additionally, you see improvements in customer engagement. Customers aren’t as passive as they used to be. Nowadays, people will willingly walk away from a business if they’re unethical or just doing things wrong. If your company makes to effort to recycle or limit your environmental impact, then customers become disengaged. They find somewhere else to spend their money – they find a business that commits to recycling and sustainable practices.
In effect, you can make your customer be more engaged and connected to your business if you make recycling a key part of your CSR policy. They will love that you’re trying to make a difference. They’ll buy products/services to support a company that’s doing its bit for the environment. So, you can improve customer loyalty and also attract new customers too.
The bottom line is that you need to build a CSR policy around the ideas of recycling and sustainability. It is your corporate responsibility to be mindful of how your business affects the environment. You can’t ignore it, and you should start developing a policy around this today.
