Case study, Corporate Social responsibility case study, Tesco's Corporate Social Responsibility Initiatives

 

Free Case Study

<< Previous

Tesco and its Competitors

Each of the UK's top retailers has its own CSR approach and there are substantial variations in the nature, content and extent of the reporting process. Most of the top 10 retailers are employing KPIs to measure and benchmark their CSR achievements. The top retailers claim that CSR is an integral element of their core business. While a majority produced dedicated CSR reports, some include CSR information in their annual reports and some provided information on the company website. Tesco, for example, in 2003/2004, produced a 38 page Corporate Responsibility Review. From its initial publication i.e., 2002/2003 to 2007/2008, every year the pages of disclosure were increased . Tesco's focus on CSR is growing year-by-year. From the content analysis, it can be found that Tesco gives almost equal importance to its economic, social and environmental policies in its CSR initiatives. There is also steady increase in its CSR components particularly, in economic policy and practice. Similarly titled reports produced by John Lewis, Marks & Spencer, and GUS were 39, 48 and 64 pages respectively. Sainsbury provides an interactive web-based report. Somerfield and Boots both allocate four pages of their annual reports to CSR.

Marks & Spencer, for example, claims a strong tradition of CSR and sees it as integral to its business operations. Sainsbury argues that CSR is an integral part of its brand. Here the company has six board level directors responsible for individual CSR issues and the company's head of public affairs and CSR leads a small team responsible for coordinating and reporting on CSR policy. However, the overall CSR responsibility lies with the chief executive. According to Peter Jones and David (2005), the retailers report on CSR issues under a variety of headings. Sainsbury uses the following headings 'Colleagues', 'Community', 'Customers', 'Environment' and 'Suppliers', while Marks & Spencer list 'Sustainable raw materials', 'Responsible use of technology', 'Animal welfare', 'Ethical trading' and 'Community programmes' as primary issues but also focuses briefly on 'Products', 'People' and 'Places'.20 Tesco uses 'Community', 'Customers', 'Environment', 'Economic', 'Social', 'Stakeholder Engagement', 'Suppliers', etc. Sainsbury, one of the founder members of the ETI, claims that as it broadens its supplier base, especially in developing countries, it takes some responsibility for the welfare of employees, who produce the goods it sells and the society in general.

The company emphasised on principles like fair trade, protection of children, health and safety, equal opportunities, freedom of association, freedom of employment and hours of work, and wages. The large food retailers have reported on their response to concerns about Genetically Modified (GM) foods, food scares such as BSE and Listeria, the use of pesticides and heavy metals, and the growing consumer demand for organic products

Next >>

---

20]Peter Jones, Draphne Comfort and David Hillier, "Corporate Social responsibility and the UK's top ten retailers", International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, Vol.33 No.12, pp. 882-892, 2005

---