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In the past few years, a growing trend amongst businesses, corporations and organizations has been to use socially responsible business practices to enhance their brand or image in a local or global market. The reasons for this change in attitude in companies has been primarily as a result of world issues such as climate change, cheap labour and the mismanagement of natural resources. A company will choose to become ‘green’ or ‘eco-friendly’ or gather resources from ’sustainable’ areas of the world so as to look good in the eyes of the consumer. Does this work effectively? Yes.

1. Socially Responsible Business Practices

1. There are basically two ways to go about it, to put it into layman’s terms you can either ’support’ something or ‘go against’ something.
2. Specifically, you can resist something or assist it, this could mean that your organization supports a charity organization, the planting of trees to offset carbon emissions or make your company do something proactive and volunteer and sponsor a big event funded by a charity.

2. Credibility Of Organizations You Support

There are thousands, if not millions, of charity organizations around the world, you need to find a credible one - or one that many people know. When you think about it, big names like Red Cross, UNICEF and WorldVision come to mind. Going for less known organizations will not have as much of an impact on the readers as a well known one, bigger organizations mean a greater amount of credibility and stronger brand association with positive connotations.

3. Developing An In-House Strategy For Social Responsibility

1. People will look at your company in a new light. You can create a custom-made in-house strategy for making your business socially responsible.
2. Google is currently using several sources of renewable energy and has servers that run more efficiently than typical servers, these are custom built.
3. McDonalds makes use of it’s Ronald McDonald House Charities program which means that it does not have to rely on third party companies to create a positive brand image. This means there is more directional control for crafting the brand.

4. Creating A Socially Responsible Online Business Or Website

If you want your enhance your online business brand, you need to find out how to offset the carbon emissions produced by it. As weird as this may seem, the server that your site is hosted on and your hosting may not be a green organization. In extreme scenarios you may want to move to green hosting. You can even give away some of your monthly income to charitable organizations (like I do here). Developing office strategies to cut down on electricity use, water wastage and paper use are also equally as effective.

5. My Personal Opinions About Socially Responsible Business Practices

1. Socially responsible business practices can do a world of good for companies who want to gain some extra publicity for themselves, this is why most companies implement the practices in the first place.
2. They put their marketing strategy ahead of the actual charity work; and this is the bone of contention for me, I think that if your company is looking into being socially responsible, the resistant or supportive strategies should be put ahead of the marketing.

6. Your Opinions About Socially Responsible Business

Okay, now it’s your turn! I’ve mentioned what I think about socially responsible business above, but what is more important is what you have to say! Share your thoughts, comments, opinions and feedback about companies using socially responsible business practices as a marketing gimmick instead of being genuine about it. What say you?

• Do you believe that all companies should have some form of social responsibility in their business?
• Would you consider implementing socially responsible practices into your business?
• How much do you think socially responsible business can transform an organization?

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Tags: charity, climate change, corporate social responsibility, google green initiative, green hosting, Marketing, marketing strategy, redcross, ronald mcdonald house charities, Social Responsibility, unicef, volunteering, worldvision