Ethical Claims of Body Shop - Essay Example

? Ethical Claims of Body Shop Table of Contents Executive Summery 3 Discussion 5 Conclusion 7 Reference 9 Executive Summery Body Shop is the World’s second largest company that manufactures and markets beauty products. This report deals with a brief discussion on ethics and corporate social responsibility of the company. This study provides detailed analysis about how the company is related to human behaviour and how it can implement the policies of ethics and social responsibility. In this study, it has been discussed that how Body Shop has implied different ethical issues in the organization and how it is focused on long term sustainability. This report also focuses on the issues that can make a clear doubt on the Body Shop’s claim about their ethical business practice. This analysis is discussing the positive issues and also negative issues relating to the Body Shop’s ethical claim. Introduction Ethics is the moral of any individual’s life. The same principle is applied for the organization. Ethics means doing things in the right way, for that someone needs to distinguish between the right and wrong things and then it is important to choose the right things. Following the child labour issues by not involving a child into a work is a kind of ethical behaviour of the organizations. Business ethics aims at imposing the sense of the business responsibility within the company’s employees. In today’s business, the social concept of marketing is very important where the organization works as a social unit and does the responsibility towards its own society (Morden, 2004, p.89). For defining ethics it is difficult to create any hard and fast rules. Ethical business practices ensure competitive return to the company’s stakeholders and fair behaviour with its employees. A company can widen its responsibility by many ways but the basic responsibility of the company is not to harm the society or to minimise the harm of the society and work in a way that it could help the entire community. Every business follows some laws and codes of conduct. There are no certain rules for defining ethics but most of the companies fix some ethical code of conduct to operate their business (Sims, 2003, p. 234). This code of conduct is fixed by consulting with the Government, employees, human right commissions and other stakeholder. Now the study will discuss whether the companies will be able to gain any profit? What is the basic objective of the business? The objective for any business is to ensure the profit of the shareholders but the securities of the stakeholders also need to be ensured. The stakeholders are the persons who have directly or indirectly interest in the business. The Stakeholders are the employees, the shareholders, the government, the Media, the NGOs, everyone around the company. For example, if a factory is polluting the society through its wastage it is actually hampering the health of the people staying in the society. Though the organization is not directly related with the society but indirectly it is affecting the society. There the ethics come, what is the way to deal with certain problems, how to reduce the ill effect of the organization to ensure the social and human security. Each organization has its own parameter to fix up the specific code of conduct of the business. It’s always true that only ethical firm can do the corporate social responsibility, corporate responsibility can be done by anyone, it is the contribution and taking more responsibility towards society. But, all the firms doing social responsibility are not ethical always (Randall, 2001, p.56). There is no certain proof that the firm have done all the things in the right way. Discussion In the light of the discussion of “ethics and corporate social responsibility” the “Body Shop” ethical journey will be explained. The Body Shop international PLC has 24000 stores all over the world. It is a beauty product Cosmetics Company founded in England in the year of 1976. The founder of Body Shop, Anita Roddick, visited one shop in California once in the early, 1970’s and she found that this shop is selling the beauty products whose ingredients are natural and as a part of social responsibility they try to employ the immigrant women. Roddcik influenced by the ethical behaviour of the shop and purchased the naming right. From the year 1990, Body Shop engaged in different Socialist activities. Body shop made an alliance with Greenpeace in UK with the objective to save the whale. As per Anita Roddick, saving the human rights was very important she did not believe on the destructive human rights. Some of the important social issues of Body Shop are community trade, campaign in favour of the human rights, and protection of planet by reducing environmental pollution, anti animal testing. Many critics have said that Body Shop was against the globalization but Body shop proved it wrong with the programmes “Trade not Aid”. This a programme where Body Shop took the initiative to trade with third world nations for helping the third world nations by creating employment, using their resources to fulfil their own needs. It was not an Aid but it was a kind of social responsibility through the trade, through the globalization. Body Shop went to Nepal and employed 37 people for making bags, notebooks as a part of social welfare. Body Shop established a factory in the depressed area of Glasgow. Body Shop was undertaking the periodic social audit of their activities. The objective of Body Shop was to secure employee welfare, environmental welfare and human rights preservation. Body Shop believed on the ethical trading means the brand, the retailer, the suppliers will work together with the same objective of ethical business. Body Shop buys more than 65% of the ingredients from community trade. They opposed for the animal testing in the cosmetics products. Body Shop does not test the products on animals or they do not use any finished product that is tested on animals. Body Shop rewarded with Lifetime Achievement Award for their uncompromised policy of not using the animal tested product and not allowing the suppliers to test the products in animal. Body Shop does not export any beauty products to China as China is the supporter of animal testing (Ogilvie, 2005, p.260). These are all the positive sides of Body Shop where we can see the rosy pictures of Body Shop’s social journey. But after the acquisition of Body Shop by L’Oreal the question arises that how the Body Shop can maintain its own culture while L’Oreal is a very aggressive company and they use the animal testing method for their cosmetics company. Nestle has some stakes in L’Oreal which is also known as a very aggressive and commercialized firm. In this situation, Body Shop is claiming that L’Oreal wants to apply the ethical ways of business that is why this acquisition happens but how far it is true that L’Oreal has buy the ethics not the business. When Body shop was affording with EU to ban animal testing, L’Oreal was lobbying against EU and Body Shop for the animal testing though it stopped testing. Nestle is also blamed as the least responsible company of the world. Body shop has given the reason for the acquisition is L’Oreal is now doing research on alternatives for the animal testing. This statement has the evidence also, L’Oreal has announced that they will donate 1.2% dollar to the environmental protection Agency for chemical testing to invent a test that is not used on animals. After acquiring by L’Oreal Body shop has lost its brand image (Crane, 2008, p.159). Another issue occurs against Body Shop as they claim themselves as farmer friendly and always buy the ingredients from the companies which protects local farmers right, buys Palm oil from an organization which push to vacant 123 farmers family for new plantation. Palm oil cultivation has taken a significant growth due to of its use in different products. Daabon is Columbian Company producing palm oil and it is major supplier of Body Shop. Almost 90% of the palm oil is supplied to Body Shop from this company. The popularity of palm oil is increasing day by day but the Environmentalist groups are not in the favour of cultivating palm oil because it takes large amount of forest destruction. Greenpeace says that palm oil industry produces large amount of emission of carbon. Conclusion There are lots of evident that can show that, Body Shop is the pioneer of the animal testing protector and they are claiming that the disputed land is not producing the oil that is supplied to them. After the acquisition, how far the company can maintain its own ethics it is a debatable topic but there are positive as well as negative aspects of the Body Shop ethical issues prevail. The brand Body Shop is popular due to of their ethical stand point. L’Oreal bought the brand, not the ethics of the Body Shop but it is also true without of the ethics the brand position will be degraded. So, for sustaining its position the brand has to continue with its ethics and corporate social responsibility. Reference Crane, A., 2008. The Oxford handbook of corporate social responsibility, UK: Oxford Handbooks Online. Morden, T., 2004. Principle of Management. UK: Ashgate Publication. Ogilvie, J., 2005. Clep principles of management. New Jersey: Research & Education Associate. Randall, G., 2001. Principles of Marketing. Stanford: Thomson Learning. Sims, R., 2003. Ethics and corporate social responsibility, UK: Greenwood Publishing group. Warren, K., 2008. Strategic Management Dynamics, UK: Wiley.com. Read More