Toll Brothers - Corporate Social Responsibility - Case Study Example

Toll Brothers - Corporate Social Responsibility Introduction The Toll Brothers has been one of the dominating home-building companies in the United States since it was founded in the late 1960s. This rate of success makes Toll Brothers to become a company everyone in American society looks up to in demonstrating a high level of social responsibility. Although the Company has made some strategic steps in this regard, but the dynamic nature of the industry and socio-environmental requirements make Corporate Social Responsibility an on-going concern. This report is prepared for the CEO of Toll Brothers, highlighting the current CSR practices by the company, identifying the areas the program has been faulty and suggesting the appropriate recommendations to improve Toll Brothers’ CSR policies and practices. This report is prepared in a way that it offers step-by-step information about the general picture of corporate social responsibility at Toll Brothers. Toll Brothers’ Current Corporate Social Responsibility Policies Toll Brothers has often prided itself as a company that pays serious attention to the preservation of the environment by instituting its “Building Green” policies (Toll Brothers, 2010). The Company approaches this issue from different perspectives, but all processes undertaken by Toll Brothers are meant to ensure that the environment and societies (communities) are in danger of destruction or extermination. Hence, the major aspects of Toll Brothers’ environmental preservation efforts so as to remain competitive in the home-building industry include but not restricted to the following processes: (i) Environment-saving measures: Toll Brothers utilize engineered wood products produced from fast-growing, renewable timber. These woods products include laminated beam, floor joints and strand board (Toll Brothers, 2010). Since these products are from renewable source, their use would not likely cause environmental loss on the communities. The foundations of Toll Brothers’ homes are waterproofing—this entails that water could not be trapped under them and be hoarded from people’s consumption. The Company uses prefabricated wall panels and trusses that are made at Toll Brothers’ facilities—this helps to save wastage of wood. The Company tries to save energy through the use of R30 (or higher) blown cellulose attic insulation and house-wrap and air-sealing that would prevent air from infiltrating into the house to cut down energy utilization (Toll Brothers, 2010). Water is further saved through the process of low-flow plumbing fixtures; and ninety (90%) of the fuels used in Toll Brothers’ homes are efficient and free of fossil fuels that could summarily endanger the atmosphere. Interestingly, the Company made it mandatory that the fluorescent lights are only used in the homes to conserve the use of electricity and help families to stay away from ballooning electric bills (Toll Brothers, 2010). All the procedures highlighted above are necessary to conserve 4 water, electricity, energy and help families to save their hard-earned money by not spending them on excessive energy bills, water bills and health bills. The logic is that if the environment has become polluted, it will be difficult for the people in the communities to survive. But Toll Brothers have provided the processes to prevent these mishaps from occurring. (ii) Out-of-Door Environmental Preservation: In addition to securing the homes of their customers, Toll Brothers have also taken a gigantic step to preserve the environment outside these homes. A number of environmentally friendly procedures are implemented or supported the Company in association with the nation-wide conservation organizations like The National Wildlife Federation and Audubon International. The results of the partnerships with these organizations help Toll Brothers to understand the mechanism of wood or forest preservation and meaningful utilization of wood products (Toll Brothers, 2010). Hence, the homes built by the Company are aligned in a way that they match with the natural scenic look of the areas they are situated. In this way, natural scenery is not destroyed for the purpose of erecting homes (Toll Brother, 2010). This is the main reason why Toll Brothers’ homes could be seen near hills, ponds, waterways, trees, and seas that are permanently available on the sites where the houses are being (Toll Brothers, 2010). 5 (iii) Modern Growth Ideology The Company envisions a Smart Growth strategy for the future, and this makes Toll Brothers to include in its home design some structures that are helpful for pedestrians and beautify the entire communities. This strategy involves making preparation for open spaces that could be used for farmlands, natural beauty and environmental areas (Toll Brothers, 2010). The Company also engineers the re-use of brownfields and design transportation alternatives to prevent over-crowdedness in places that are full of many residential homes (Toll Brothers, 2010). (iv) Remediation or Revitalization Processes Toll Brothers also encourage the processes of remediating the environment through the creation of infill site developments and work hard to support land revitalization process. The essence of this is to prevent any occurrence of wastages on land or natural sites. Toll Brothers have produced environmentally friendly designs that would help these sites merge naturally with the existing surroundings (Toll Brothers, 2010). (v) Green Building Programs 6 Toll Brothers have always been supportive of the Green Building programs that encourage building homes that would not harm the environment and the people in a community. Some of the expectations of Green Building programs include but not limited to building homes that will surely save energy, conserve water, provide greater energy efficiency, harmless to the environment, reduce pollution of all types, save natural resources, and help consumers to save some money through all these processes (Toll Brothers, 2010). The activities above indicate clearly the efforts Toll Brothers are making to ensure that the homes they design and build are not harmful to the people as well as the environment. In the light of this, the Company has taken serious precautions in making sure that energy and water conservation is of paramount importance in its environment-saving policies. This is what makes Toll Brothers stand out among other home-building companies in the United States. Some Shortcomings about Toll Brothers’ CSR Efforts The Toll Brothers’ corporate social responsibilities outlined above have some perceptible shortcomings when compared with the usual practices in the industry. Toll Brothers only endeavor to maintain environmental friendliness in the utilization of wood 7 products and other resources for its building purposes, but the Company does not have many in-house precautionary measures that could guarantee that constant monitoring of its operational procedures are maintained in order not to jeopardize the health of its home users and the environment in general. On the other hand, the building industry is a dynamic one that requires complex structures for ascertaining that the wood products and other materials that are made in-house or ordered from other manufacturers conform to the standardized quality and be harmless to people and the environment. In light of this, Toll Brothers need to undertake some in-house re-engineering that would make this possible. Some of the ways the Company could actualize this goal are stated below under the New Improvements and Applications. Incidentally, Toll Brothers still largely rely on the wood products and building materials that are produced outside the Company’s facilities, and of which quality Toll Brothers do not have control over. New Improvements and Applications Five new improvements are necessary if Toll Brothers would have to have maximum control on its plan to exhibit high degree of corporate social responsibility to its customers and to the communities as w whole. The new transformations include the following processes: 8 (i) Applicable standardizations: Toll Brothers need to apply all the relevant standards that are connected with its operations. Building is an exercise that requires the applications of several fields of human profession: it involves the actions of civil engineers, wood technologist, environmental scientists, property managers, electrical and mechanical engineers, and so on. Each of these human professions has standards that guide their operations (Venables and Construction Industry Research and Information Association, 1994). It may be difficult for Toll Brothers to unilaterally ascertain that the quality of all the building materials supplied to the Company meet all the standards required by these professional fields; hence, meaningful collaborations between Toll Brothers and its suppliers could lead to a positive instance whereby there are some guarantees on the quality of the building raw materials the Company purchases. Standards for environmental management like ISO 14000/14001 may be quite helpful for Toll Brothers to fully understand the areas of environmental protections its numerous building operations must strictly consider to earn the constant respect o (Venables and Construction Industry Research and Information Association, 1994). This kind of association with standard associations or organizations will help to eliminate vested interests on the part of Toll Brothers’ suppliers, who may want to circumvent the right approaches in order to maximize their gains and expose Toll Brothers to shame through the use of corrupted building materials that may the safety practices at the Company. 9 (ii) Proper Handling of Building Materials: The method home-building companies used in handling their building materials speak volumes about their corporate and social responsibilities. Mostly, building materials are made from chemical substances. Sometimes they do contain bits of these chemicals that may be in minute proportion. If such materials are not properly handled, they could cause havoc to the home-buyers as well as the environment. This entails that Toll Brothers should incorporate some processes that have been used successfully by players in building industry. These helpful processes include but not restricted to: (i) applying labeling scheme—when the materials are professionally labeled, it will be possible to indentify which materials are toxic to touch or environment. Unlabelled building materials may pose confusion for the construction workers as they try to avoid using inappropriate materials to build homes that people will live in (Venables and Construction Industry Research and Information Association, 1994); (ii) storage facilities—the building materials must be properly stored in a way that they would be exposed to the elements, which cold invariably make them to become harmful for human use. Improper storage of building materials may cause oil, grease and sludge to be spilled on them, and they could create environmental hazards for both the construction workers and the eventual owners of the buildings. Toll Brothers should work hard in this regard, because this will help save costs and the Company’s reputation; 10 (iii) Proper disposal of waste materials--many building companies have often erred in the procedures they employed in disposing of their waste materials. Toll Brothers should apply the latest technology in waste disposal to deal with the waste products and containers of used materials so as to prevent them from becoming a burden to the Company as well as to the communities where Toll Brothers’ homes are situated. The Company also needs to emphasize on the process of re-cycling, because some of these waste materials can be put to good use if they are properly handled. Timber, for example, often produces a lot of wastes like wooden particles, rough boards, and so on; all these wastes should be re-cycled or completely thrown away if they could not be converted into useful ones (Venables and Construction Industry Research and Information Association, 1994). Since Toll Brothers do not reveal in its policy detailed procedures for handling its industrial wastes, it is pertinent that the suggestions provided in the foregoing should be broadly considered and incorporated into the Company’s system of building material management. And these quality control processes should be highlighted in the Company’s policies so that its investors could clearly understand what approaches the Company adopts in making sure that the environment and people’s health are duly protected in the course of building construction and thereafter. Prospective investors and business partners also will rely on this information to be sure if Toll Brothers are serious about conserving the limited resources the environment provides. 11 (iv) Project Planning: It is possible for Toll brothers to incorporate environmental friendliness into all the facets of its operations right from the tendering process, contract-making, and the final execution of the building project. This can be achieved if the Company pays close attention to the following important issues: (i) tendering—during tendering bids to construct homes, Toll Brothers can make it known to the business partners its environmental requirements, which can be included in the tender. The Company has some environmental requirements which include but not limited to making the environment safe for inhabitation and saving energy and water for continuous human consumption (Venables and Construction Industry Research and Information Association, 1994); (ii) Contracting—Toll Brothers should not sign or recognize any contracts that do not include measures to preserve the environment or protect human health in it. The contract the Company should be interested in must contain references to the appropriate legislations and regulations that are primarily drawn to safeguard the environment and people. Examples of these legislations include The Environmental Protection Act 1990; Health and Safety at Work Act 1974; The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 (Venables and Construction Industry Research and Information Association, 1994). Once these legislations have been clearly indicated in the contracts, it will be difficult for Toll Brothers’ business partners or customers to shy away from fulfilling their parts in making sure that the environment is not in danger; and also that people—home users—will not 12 suffer immediate harm for occupying such a house; (iii) Green purchasing policies—this is a vital aspect of environment-saving effort that Toll Brothers must concentrate on. This is because the Company mainly relies on the purchasing of building raw materials to carry out its human-building activities. Hence, once the issue of green purchases has been settled with the suppliers, Toll Brothers can be assured that the resources that are used in its homes are not going to pose any serious threat to the people and the communities. To successfully accomplish this task, it requires that Toll Brothers carry out in-depth trainings for its procuring managers and the sub-contractors so as to be assured the quality of its purchases is not compromised due to poor understanding of highly toxic building materials can cause to the people as well as the environment. Hence, it is important that vital information must be properly processed and passed across to the right people that need it so as to establish a condition of caution and mission. It has been reported on several occasions that people make the mistake of utilizing poisonous materials to build home owing to scanty information about the danger of such materials. In this way, sending the right signal across the administrative department as well as building construction workers can go a long way to preventing the mistaken use of harmful building materials. This precaution must be taken on a daily basis to guarantee that the standards are not compromised and Toll Brothers’ partners and customers understand the Company does not underrate this significant issue. 13 (v) Operational Management: The last area that Toll Brothers need to consider critically is the issue of managing every step of its operations so as to achieve safety and quality. The Company needs to establish an Environment Management System like BS7750, which will allow in-house monitor, control and regulation of the quality control section of the Company (Venables and Construction Industry Research and Information Association, 1994). Hence, the employees of Toll Brothers will have to be trained about how to handle sensitive building materials that have the possibility of endangering the people and communities. As a result of this, a green site management policy should be adopted by the management of the Company—this entails mapping out the strategies that will oversee each segment of the building process. Starting from the site clearance, the workers should have the knowledge that trees, historical archeology, hills, and other natural resources (nature) should not be tampered with (Venables and Construction Industry Research and Information Association, 1994). Secondly, the transportation medium used to transfer materials from the warehouses to the sites must follow the green policy—this may require that trucks with bad exhaust pipes or which have been used to carry a toxic material before may not be used. Thirdly, in case there is the requirement for purchase for materials during the course of building construction, such a purchase must pass through the right channel without venturing to buy non- 14 environmentally friendly stuffs simply there is no much time. Fourthly, there must be modality for water and energy conservation. This may happen during the construction of the homes or thereafter. Water may be conserved through the use of water-efficient technologies that have been developed for a purpose like this. Energy consumption during after the home construction must be minimized so that home owners pay less for energy, and the environment will be protected through this medium. Finally, there must be a laid-down scheme to control pollution of all kinds, whether water, air, traffic, sound etc (Venables and Construction Industry Research and Information Association, 1994). By doing this, it will be easy for Toll Brothers to keep to its promise of producing homes that will be comfortable as well as healthy for living. And the environment will also benefit from these good gestures if all the facts highlighted above are seriously taken into consideration by Toll Brothers’ Management. Conclusion In conclusion, all the procedures for maintaining safety in all aspects of the Company’s operations must be adopted if Toll Brothers will like to keep its reputation among all its customers and the potential ones. Corporate and social responsibility is a continuous process that must be recognized by the management of any organization before 15 such an organization could do it properly. The advantage of setting up green building management is to encourage the employees of Toll Brothers to get familiarized with the legislations, rules and regulations that support the system of preserving the environment and the communities. Failure to do this may cost the Company its array of customers and the brand name of Toll Brothers will be seriously damaged. Customers are mostly concerned about the possibility of saving their money, energy and at the same time enjoy good health. The use of toxic or harmful building materials may rob customers of these expectations. In critical circumstances, some environmental protection agencies may recommend that the Company be prosecuted, if its practices short of protecting human safety as well as the environment. Therefore, Toll Brothers have a lot to lose from the failure to institute a functional health safety and environmental preservation policies in its day-to-day business practices. References Toll Brothers (2010 Nov. 19). Building Green. Retrieved from http://www.tollbrothers.com/homesearch/servlet/HomeSearch?app=survey Venables, R., and Construction Industry Research and Information Association (1994). Environmental handbook for building and civic engineering projects: construction phase. London: Thomas Telford. Read More