Ways to Make your Business more Socially Responsible

More and more businesses are appreciating the idea that social responsibility is the foundation of a

good business. However, there are still a number of old mindsets and practices that make it all the more

challenging for business to cut the umbilical cord with old, irresponsible ways of doing business.

If you are a business leader as motivated to make the move, here are a few ways in which you can make

your business more responsible –

Re-Imagining Responsibility

For starters, find ways to move your effort to become a responsible business away from the purview of

a single officer or department to an entire business, all of its work and work force. It is no longer

relevant for businesses to focus on responsibility only while making some decisions while allowing

bigger issues to be ignored. The most success sustainability development examples involve business

where all stakeholders were able to develop a responsible ethic.

Re-Imagining Effectiveness

Most businesses work on developing sustainable practices only for areas they think matter. For instance,

fair trade that offers excellent image and outcome. However, many certified fair trade businesses are

not really viable and do not create economic sustainability for local communities. Here, they

conveniently avoid labor practices that are unfair and the need to foster good ecological practices, for

instance.

Re-Imagining Success

Shift your business from measuring efforts to measuring effects. A responsible business will no longer

take into account activities or practices as a measurement for success. Sustainable businesses tend to

work on how actions and decisions influence the lives of the stakeholders.

Re-imagining Giving

It is less about what the business does after the profits are made but how they make the profit in the

first place. Instead of focusing of donation of time and resources, it is also important that your business

focuses on facilitating supply chain sustainability, waste-conscious business practices among other

things.

Re-imagining Impact

Focus on increasing benefits as against decreasing harm. Be more aware of the contributions you make

to your communities, customers’ lives, ecosystems, and the role of the investors in pervasive

responsibility.

Re-Imagining the Corporation

Make it a point to integrate responsibility into the business and assessing it by functional benefits that

are achieved within the system in which your company is a part of. Instead of fragmentation, work

towards inculcating a sense of responsibility into how work is done by everyone in your business.

Make it a point to inculcate a culture where every individual within the value network takes ownership

of the business like a CEO would. Each individual in the organization should feel responsible for the

overall success of the business including the everyday decisions and actions that are taken. Foster

engagement and purpose within the organization.

Build your talent instead of purchasing it. Developing potential is a lot easier and profitable and seeking

and hiring new people. By realizing the true potential of your existing workforce, implementing a

sustainable culture becomes easy for small businesses the world over.

Get more information on: Social Responsibility and Sustainability Development Examples