Is BaxterStorey a Responsible Business Organisation - Case Study Example

Is BaxterStorey a ‘responsible’ business organisation?

Table of Contents

1.0 Introduction3

2.0 Analysis of Theory3

3.0 Evaluation of BaxterStorey’s practices7

4.0 Conclusion10

Reference List11

• 1.0 Introduction

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a very modern concept which has become evidently dominant in the current business scenario. Almost every organisation has their own CSR policies and they annually report about the activities that they have contributed towards the social responsibility (McWilliams, Siegel and Wright, 2006). Corporate Social Responsibility is also known by many other names like Corporate Accountability, Corporate Citizenship, Corporate Ethics, Responsible Entrepreneurship and Triple Bottom Line (D’Amato, Henderson and Florence, 2009). Through CSR, an organisation tends to integrate various social, economic and environmental concerns into their own culture, values, decision-making strategies and operational activities, in such a way, that can create better practices within the organisation and hence generate wealth and improves the society (D’Amato, Henderson and Florence, 2009).

The purposes of this paper to understand the importance of CSR in today’s environment and evaluate the company BaxterStorey based on a particular CSR model.

• 2.0 Analysis of Theory

CSR has become very important to determine how the activities undertaken by an organisation can affect today’s environment of volatility and uncertainty. This environment not only includes the business environment in which the firm is operating, but also includes the socio-geographic environment in which the firm is located and the global environment as whole (Hohnen, 2007).

Importance and principles of CSR

According to Crowther and Aras (2008), the activities of an organisation can affect this environment in the following ways:

i) The organisations utilises natural resources for its production process. Extreme consumption may lead to depletion of these resources leaving nothing for the future world.

ii) Some strategic plans of an organisation create competition in the market. This will have an effect on the other rival firms in the market and also the customers.

iii) By providing employment opportunities an organisation can enrich the community, thereby reducing unemployment.

iv) Continuous extraction of raw materials and dumping of wastes can adversely affect and transform the landscape.

v) The wealth or profit that is generated within an organisation is distributed to the shareholders through dividends and to the workers and employees through wages and salaries. This activity in turn affects the welfare of these individuals.

vi) The most important is the impact of these activities on the ecosystem which has resulted in climatic changes and emission of greenhouse gases. This has adversely affected the ecological balance of the world.

Crowther and Aras (2008) indicated that due to lack of any specific definition and scope of CSR, it becomes very difficult to ascertain the activities included in CSR. However, to identify the CSR activities that an organisation undertakes, three basic principles are followed which can incorporate all such activities. They are:

• Sustainability- Sustainability or Sustainable development means operating or growing a business in an efficient manner by optimising the utilisation of natural resources, so that enough resource is left over for the future generation. If today’s organisation does not utilise the natural resources optimally, especially those resources which are finite in quantity like coal, iron-ore and oil, it can become a major issue in the near future (Crowther and Aras, 2008).
• Accountability- The concept of accountability in this context means that all the organisations must recognise the effects of their activities and should start taking actions against it. Accountability thus helps in quantifying these effects and the organisations can easily recognise its amount or quantity of responsibility towards each of the societal elements (Crowther and Aras, 2008).
• Transparency- The concept of transparency means that all the impact of the activities undertaken by an organisation and the measures taken by the organisation to improve those impacts must be clearly disclosed in the annual reporting. Transparency is particularly of more importance for the external stakeholders who does not have direct access to such background details like the internal stakeholders have (Crowther and Aras, 2008).

Importance of CSR in Hospitality and Tourism Industry

The concept of CSR has gained serious attention within the hospitality industry. Many hospitality businesses like hotels and restaurants have involved themselves in CSR activities and programs in order to gain customer loyalty, reduce environmental and social problems and making contributions for the development of the community. The hospitality industry which serves millions of people across the world is expected to grow considerably within the next few years. According to The International Hotel and Restaurant Association (IH&RA), the hospitality industry employs about 60 million people and generates 950 billion USD to the world economy every year (Mattera and Moreno-Melgarejo, 2012). This huge industry impacts significantly various social, economic and environmental factors across the globe and every organisation in this industry have the potential and responsibility to contribute substantially to sustainable development (Mattera and Moreno-Melgarejo, 2012).

With the rising importance and necessity of sustainable development, these two industry segments can no longer be responsible towards its stakeholders only. Instead they have to extend their corporate social responsibility towards the various other factors of the business environment in which these industries are operating. The hotel industry has several social and environmental impacts like water consumption, energy consumption, waste water management, waste production, chemical and toxic emissions and contamination of atmosphere. Hence, if the hotel and restaurant business can identify any of these issues and take appropriate actions to control these problems, it can be said that this industry is socially responsible.

Carroll’s Pyramid Model

A very popular model for evaluating CSR is the Carroll’s four-part pyramid. This model was framed in such a way which encompasses every aspect of the society and their expectations of corporate social responsibility (Geva, 2008).

Figure 1: Carroll’s Pyramid model of CSR

(Source: Visser, 2006, Author’s creation)

According to the model, CSR comprises of four types of social responsibilities namely Economic, Legal, Ethical and Philanthropic. This model was framed hierarchically in an order of decreasing importance. The most important and the base of the pyramid is the economic responsibility which states that the main responsibility of a company is to generate profit. The next level consists of legal responsibilities, which states that every company should operate within the framework of law and regulations. After this comes the ethical responsibilities which differentiates between the activities that are ethically right and those activities which are wrong and prohibited by the society. The last is the philanthropic responsibility which states that every organisation should have a responsibility towards the welfare of the society; however, this is discretional and depends from one company to another (Visser, 2006).

However, for the evaluation of BaxterStorey’s practices, a modern and more popular CSR framework will be used which is called Triple Bottom Line (TBL). The TBL model and BaxterStorey’s CSR practices based on this model is discussed in the following section.

• 3.0 Evaluation of BaxterStorey’s practices

Triple Bottom Line model

The Triple Bottom Line (TBL) is a CSR framework that encompasses three dimensions of a company’s performance which are Social, Environment and Financial. It is different from the other models of CSR as it incorporates the environmental and social factors, which can be actually difficult to measure.

Figure 2: Triple Bottom Line Model

(Source: CSRAmbassadors, 2016)

The three dimensions of the TBL model relates to three elements of every business organisation: People referring to the welfare of the employees, customers and every other citizen of the society, Profit comprising growth and income of the company and Planet which refers to the environment in which the business is operating (Savitz, 2012).

The social or the people element deals with responsibilities towards factors like unemployment rate, involvement of female labour, relative poverty, household income, education of people, welfare and quality of life of the people (Savitz, 2012). The economic or the profit element deals with factors like income and expenditure of the company, growth rate, business climate, employment, competition and number of companies in each sector (Savitz, 2012). The environmental or the planet element deals with factors like measurement of natural resources, quality of air and water, energy consumption, disposal of solid and toxic waste and use of land (Savitz, 2012).

Therefore, to become a corporate social responsible company, all these factors needs to be incorporated and nowadays, the TBL model is most widely used by many firms to evaluate their CSR activities. For evaluating the CSR practice of BaxterStorey, the Triple Bottom Line model will be used, as it incorporates every aspect of the business environment.

BaxterStorey’s CSR practices based on TBL framework

BaxterStorey is the UK’s leading independent contract catering services provider. They offer great food which is produced by using local and most healthy ingredients by their own internal chefs. Their main objective is to provide fresh and locally prepared food to the customers and get famous for the quality of training and high entrepreneurial spirit (BaxterStorey, 2016). From the very beginning, the company have been involved in sustainable development and various CSR activities. The company’s heritage is built on sustainability as they produce fresh food using healthy ingredients which is absolutely not harmful for the people who consumes it (BaxterStorey, 2016).

i) People or Social element

An important aspect is that the company continuously provide dedicated training and development to the employees and the chefs. The professionally talented individuals and teams within the company have contributed to the remarkable services to the customers. The extraordinary people of BaxterStorey are the main strength behind the company’s USP (BaxterStorey, 2016). BaxterStorey involves in the practice of rewarding its employees and chefs and also motivates them to participate in cooking competitions (BaxterStorey, 2016). This develops the morale of the employees, which is related to the people or social element of the TBL model.

ii) Planet or Environmental element

The company has been involved in extensive amount of CSR activities dealing with the environment or planet aspect of the TBL model. They have a Green Flash approach through which the company involves in efficient usage of energy and water, reducing food waste and gaining the MSC eco-level certification (BaxterStorey, 2016). To reduce waste, the company indulges in aligned packaging, recycling of cooking oil to bio-diesel and biodegradable process of cleaning. Other than these activities, the company have- i) successfully reduced 320 tonnes of food wastes, ii) generated 160,000 KwH of renewable electricity which can power about 34 homes per year, iii) saved 147 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents from food waste which could have led to greenhouse emissions, iv) reduced packaging by 20% across the entire business and v) diverted 290 tonnes of used coffee grounds from the landfill (BaxterStorey, 2016).

iii) Profit or Economic element

BaxterStorey have also successfully developed their business by generating revenues and expanding their operations. This relates them to the economic or profit element of the TBL model. The company have undertaken few mergers and acquisitions deals like the merge with a Thames Valley company named Halliday Catering Services and in 2001, the purchase of a boutique caterer named Houston & Church, which helped BaxterStorey to enter into the London market. In 2005, the company’s turnover exceeded 100 million pounds. In 2007, the company expanded its business into the Ireland market, in 2010 it entered Scotland and in 2011, it expanded business in Belgium, France, Norway and Netherlands (BaxterStorey, 2016).

Therefore, it can be determined based on the Triple Bottom Line Model that BaxterStorey have successfully involved themselves in CSR activities which actually links them to their vision of sustainable business. BaxterStorey’s future focuses on environmental stewardship, stability in price of the commodity, developing farming communities, increasing farm profitability, reducing transportation cost and improving the quality of the ingredients.

• 4.0 Conclusion

The hospital and the tourism industry are growing significantly across the globe and this growth is directly linked with various social and environmental issues. To combat these issues, Corporate Social Responsibility has become increasingly important and necessary for these sectors. To determine the CSR activities of a company, the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) Model has been framed encompassing the various elements of society (people), economy (profit) and environment (planet).

BaxterStorey have successfully implemented all these CSR aspects in their sustainable business by generating profit and expanding their business operations, providing continuous training and development facilities to the employees and chefs and most importantly, involving in various activities to improve environmental conditions. Hence, it can be said that BaxterStorey is a successful corporate social responsible business.

• Reference List

BaxterStorey, 2016. Hello We’re BaxterStorey. [online] Available at: <http://www.baxterstorey.co.uk/home> [Accessed 30 June 2016]

Crowther, D. and Aras, G., 2008. Corporate Social Responsibility, pp. 10-17. Denmark: Güler Aras & Ventus Publishing

CSRAmbassadors, 2016. Triple Bottom Line. [online] Available at: <http://www.csrambassadors.com/corporate-social-responsibility-csrambassadors/triple-bottom-line/> [Accessed 30 June 2016]

D’Amato, A., Henderson, S. and Florence, S., 2009. Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainable Business. Center for Creative Leadership, pp. 1-6

Geva, A. 2008. Three Models of Corporate Social Responsibility. Business and Society Review, 113(1), pp.1-41. New Jersey: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Hohnen, P. and Potts, J., 2007. Corporate social responsibility: An implementation guide for business. International Institute for Sustainable Development, 1, pp. 4-8

Mattera, M. and Moreno-Melgarejo, A., 2012. Strategic Implications of Corporate Social Responsibility in Hotel Industry. Higher Learning Research Communications, 2(4), pp. 37-53

McWilliams, A., Siegel, D.S., and Wright P.M., 2006. Corporate Social Responsibility: Strategic Implications. Journal of Management Studies, 43(1), pp. 1-18

Savitz, A., 2012. How today's best-run companies are achieving economic, social and environmental success--and how you can too. The triple bottom line, 1, pp. 41-92. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.

Visser, W., 2006. Revisiting Carroll’s CSR pyramid. Corporate citizenship in developing countries, 1, pp.29-56.