Corporate Social Responsibility of Costa Coffee - Essay Example

? CSR of Costa Coffee CSR of Costa Coffee In the last few years, the coffee making industry has been vigorousin terms of monumental changes in the backdrop of coffee brewing corporations. These modifications range from acquisitions and mergers to modifying consumer tastes and eventually, to various branding strategies. These actions are projected to continue for the next ten years. In United Kingdom, Costa Coffee is one of the biggest companies in terms of profitability and volume of sales. It has also one of the most extensive connections among other United Kingdom brewers made practical via a network of breweries and distributors. Costa coffee is an international coffeehouse corporation, which is based in Dunstable, UK. It is an entirely owned contributory of Whitebread and is the biggest coffeehouse chain in the UK and second-biggest in the world (Harford, 2012, P. 54). The company operates in 1175 channels, and as of January 2011, it was the biggest British channel in terms of stores. Globally, costa coffee operates in 442 outlets all over the world, in 28 nations. The company has introduced a brand known as costa express, which is formed by a coffee channel of self-service bars. After Whitbread acquired Coffee Nation, which is a procession of coffee machines, the nine hundred Coffee Nation machines will be substituted and re-named as costa Express. Costa coffee has acquired its roaster and hires the only three Italian superior Roasters in the United Kingdom. The mixture served in vend stores is called Mocha Italia and comprises of six sections Arabica beans and one section robusta beans (British Retail Consortium, 2006, P.1). The Costa Coffee product already has a first class ranking in all its market ventures. It is nearly the main profit giver of the corporation in the extensive markets of the United Kingdom. Furthermore, due to its market power, the Costa Coffee brand has already attained substantial, profitable sections on its own. The company, Costa Coffee, use the name of both its conventional coffee label and the company, and this approach has permitted the corporate to search for an incorporated marketing approach primarily connected to the company name. However, there are questions concerning if the company’s ethics or corporate social responsibilities are in order. In addition, the strategies the company is using are questionable concerning if they provide more effectual results than other companies in terms of obtaining company name reputation (Enz, 2009, P.34). Corporate responsibility is an extremely crucial element for all businesses as it determines the reputation of a business and thus, profitability and development. It is indispensable for companies in food production to be socially responsible. This is because they are in a highly sensitive sector, which requires careful handling of both the products and customers. It is particularly valuable for companies in food production sectors, to ensure that they produce sufficient information concerning how they are socially responsible (Lury, 2011, P.17). The studies, undertaken by corporate social responsibility researchers have criticized the sustainability qualifications of Costa Coffee in areas such as recycling and waste. The study has shown that Costa Coffee gave most of its information, but did not offer a UK breakdown of its corporate social responsibility international report. The report discovered that Costa Coffee, which is possessed by Whitbread, operated better in its ventures but did not succeed in replying to requests for corporate social responsibility information. Costa Coffee also did not reveal information for its carbon tracks, but rather its environmental information is stated as section of the parent company (Lury, 204, P.37). Disclosing corporate social responsibility report is not only valuable for the purposes of fulfilling legal requirements, but also to increase customer confidence and reputation of the company. Costa Coffee customers and other potential customers are indifferent about what they think about the company as they cannot tell if the company is fulfilling its corporate social responsibility. This can hugely affect the sales and profitability of the company (Bacon, 2009, P.11). Therefore, Costa Coffee should take a number of necessary actions in order to solve the ethical issue it faces. To start with, the company should clearly evaluate whether it operations are ethical as per the international business laws. It should prepare a report explaining how it is undertaking its corporate responsibility, including how it recycles its waste together with carbon contents. Costa Coffee can also try to bring ethical and eco coffee to the high streets. It was the initial coffee shop channel in the United Kingdom to devote to purchasing beans from rainforest farms. Costa Coffee can focus on sourcing all its coffee from registered sustainable farms as fast as possible (Gabriel & Tim, 2006, P.19). Furthermore, the company can try to top a poll as the best corporation at dealing with environmental and social issues. Costa Coffee can aim at supporting the regions, which supplies it with coffee beans more than it has been doing in the past. It can also address environmental issues by joining more organizations than it has currently, which aims at tackling environmental issues. Costa Coffee can also team up with other organizations, which support local regions lending several of its stores for meetings where regional residences meet casually to address issues from a faith outlook (Macdonald & Shelley, 2010, P.54). However, even with these actions being taken, there are possible limitations that might face the company. To start with, since Costa Coffee distributes its product all over many sectors, it may lack the elasticity that some of its more determined competitors have. As a result, it might take any necessary measures to ensure that it is not defeated by its competitors. This can bring about issues concerning its corporate social responsibility because it might decide to adopt actions, which are not ethically correct (Lury, 2004, P.19). In addition, even though the Costa Coffee operates internationally, its presence is situated in only comparatively few nations. Therefore, even if it prepared its corporate social responsibility reports, it might not reach all its potential customers especially if its target is extending its operations. Furthermore, it has been found out that some of the Costa Coffee personnel do not sufficient skills in various areas of the company’s operations. This is to mean that if the company exposes its social responsibility report, it might lose its customers, as they will lack confidence in the company’s products (Macdonald & Shelley, 2010, P.44). Also, the fact that Costa Coffee has a reputation of producing exceedingly bitter coffee; it is prone to the short-term losses of its crucial employees to sick leaves especially for workers who are in the production section. Therefore, by exposing the report many people will not be willing to work with the company and; therefore, it will fail to meet its objective of helping local communities like in offering them jobs (Werther & Chandler, 2010, P.15). However, Costa Coffee can counter these limitations; by taking over or forming alliances with other related companies and concentrating on powerful markets, the company will be able to venture markets which are not crowded and, therefore, it will not have to undertake unethical business operations. The outlets of the company operate just in trade in a comparatively small number of nations globally. Therefore, this is likely to bring openings for potential businesses in expanding different consumer markets. This will help the company in being socially responsible as it will be able to produce high quality products. This has been implemented by Costa Coffee and has assisted a great deal in improving its international reputation (Werther & Chandler, 2010, P.21). In addition, the opening of new places and outlets will give the company the chances to take advantage of market growth. This will lead to the diversifications of the corporations’ outlets from leading centers to locally based sites. This way, the company will be able to concentrate on ways of involving the local community in its operations. This is because it will employ many personnel, most of whom will come from the local community. Moreover, by being successful, Costa Coffee will be able to be more proud and this will lead the company to being more socially responsible as it looks into the potential opportunities of exploiting new markets. Finally, Costa Coffee can take advantage of its knowledge in new technologies in order recycle wastes and tackle the carbon emission issues (Nicholls & Charlotte, 2005, P.20). BIBLIOGRAPHY British Retail Consortium. British Retail Consortium 2006.UK: The Stationery Office, Dec 30, 2005. Bacon, Christopher, M. Mendez, V. Ernesto & Stephen R. Gliessman. Confronting the coffee crisis: fair trade, sustainable livelihoods and ecosystems in Mexico and Central America. NY: MIT Press, Feb 29, 2008. Enz, Cathy, A. Hospitality Strategic Management: Concepts and Cases. NY: John Wiley and Sons, Apr 7, 2009. Gabriel, Yiannis & Tim, Lang. The unmanageable consumer. NY: SAGE, May 9, 2006. Harford, Tim. The Undercover Economist. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Apr 1, 2012. Lury, Celia. Consumer Culture: Consumer Culture, Second Edition. Rutgers: Rutgers University Press, May 8, 2011. Lury, Celia. Brands: the logos of the global economy. Routledge: Routledge, Sep 28, 2004. Macdonald, Kate & Shelley, Marshall. Fair trade, corporate accountability and beyond: experiments in globalizing justice. NY: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., Feb 28, 2010. Nicholls, Alex & Charlotte, Opal. Fair trade: market-driven ethical consumption.NY: SAGE, Jul 12, 2005. Werther, William, B. & Chandler , David. Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility: Stakeholders in a Global Environment. NY: SAGE, Apr 28, 2010.   Read More