Sustainability in Johnson & Johnson
First Year Seminar: Sustainability and Social Justice
Betty Yu
Northwestern University
Sustainability in Johnson & Johnson Johnson & Johnson is an American multinational company that manages and produces medical devices, pharmaceutical, and consumer packaged goods and are the brains behind recognizable products such as Band-Aids, Neutrogena, etc. This corporation has been turning heads with its sustainability program which has awarded them a ranking of number eight on Forbes’s list of Top Sustainable Companies of 2017. This paper explores Johnson & Johnson’s personal stance on sustainability and how it has developed over time in the corporation’s background and history. Named as one of the
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This definition is almost identical to that of the Brundtland Report’s view on global sustainability. Many organizations and corporations have since then embedded the Brundtland Report’s concepts of sustainability and sustainable development, whether it’s for genuine care for the world or the desire to increase positive publicity to consumers. But the process of determining and implementing the definition can be tricky as many struggle with twisting around the term with its broad and interpretable definition. Many arguments have surrounded the issue of when a company releases its sustainable development progress to the stakeholders, they will reap many advantages that are not usually associated with releasing this soft of data in an annual financial …show more content…
In other words, these socially responsible companies will evaluate not only the short and long term economic outcomes of their present decisions but also the long-term environmental and societal outcomes of their current actions. This thus leads to the triple bottom line approach of reporting environmental, social, and economic performance. In addition, Wilson from the Ivey Business Journal argues about corporate social responsibility or the CSR. The CSR has been around longer than the term and implication of “sustainable development” but has similar guidelines. From about 1953 the on, the main debate was whether corporate managers had an ethical responsibility to consider the needs of society and by 1980, it was generally and consensually accepted that corporate managers should and did have this moral responsibility. So by incorporating sustainability plans or even creating a separate branch dedicated to doing so, the company’s reputation often is increased, which over the long term, will contribute to accentuate customer loyalty, market share, and brand value and awareness. (Wilson, 2003) This case study done on Johnson & Johnson published by the IMA Educational Case Journal analyzes the impact that implementations of these sustainability
Many firms are learning that being environmentally friendly and sustainable has numerous benefits. (O.C Ferrell, Fraedrich, Ferrell, 2015). This could enable them to increase goodwill from various stakeholders and also save money in the long term. This will mean that they are being more efficient and less wasteful of resources, which will enable them to be more competitive by satisfying stakeholders. The CEO of
or so many years our society has been thinking of forming new creative and innovative businesses, which would be more environmental and customer friendly. Nowadays a large number of different companies follow the social, ethical, as well as moral consequences when it comes to their decision making. One of the relatively new concepts involving economic and social concerns is Corporate Social Responsibility. Many of us apply this approach not only at work, but also in everyday life without even recognizing.
I chose this book after reading a little on the Author’s background. Bob Willard worked for IBM Canada for 34 years and his business and leadership experience is vast. His passion for sustainability and helping businesses create overall sustainable cultures that are profitable as they can be was inspiring in itself. After his career with IBM, he pursued Sustainability in a way that he could effectively create and help implement these systems into large and small businesses alike. An author of this and three other books, his company Sustainable Advantage is a B Corporation product, a new type of registered business whose goals largely align with social and environmental efforts as a company. He also gives monetary donations equaling 10% of his company’s annual revenue each year to other organizations dedicated to people and planet concerns.
The term ‘corporate social responsibility’ is still in popular use, even though competing, complementary and overlapping concepts such as corporate citizenship, business ethics, stakeholder management and sustainability are all vying to become the most accepted and widespread descriptor of the field. At the same time, the concept of corporate social performance (CSP) has become an established umbrella term which embraces both the descriptive and normative aspects of the field, as well as placing an emphasis on all that firms are achieving or accomplishing in the realm of social responsibility policies, practices and results. In the final analysis, however, all these concepts are related, in that they are integrated by key, underlying themes such as value, balance and accountability (Schwartz and Carroll 2008), and CSR remains a dominant, if not exclusive, term in the academic literature and in business practice. Just to illustrate how the concept is always evolving, CSR International, a non-profit organization, announced in 2009 the birth celebration of CSR International, an exciting new organization supporting the transition from what it called the ‘old CSR’ (Corporate Social Responsibility) or CSR 1.0 to the ‘new CSR’ (Corporate Sustainability & Responsibility) or CSR 2.0. Whether CSR 2.0 turns out to be substantially different
Companies today are heavily influenced by the demands of customers and stakeholders. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) refers to the social and environmental responsibility policies and practices developed by an organization to increase its positive influence and reduce its negative activity towards society (Parks, 2008). The business approach and corporate philosophy of an organization is easily altered due to economic pressures, technological improvement and stakeholder needs and demands. "Going green" or being eco-friendly is one such demand. Environmental and sustainability concerns originate most often from governments, consumer activists, and the general public (Schlosser, 2008). Thus, organizations must implement sustainability into daily practices. In addition, sustainability alters the nature of competition and drives companies to think differently about products, processes, and technologies (Parks, 2008).
This article is study of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and sustainability. It mainly speaks about the origin and the operations of CSR programs in the United States of America from the 1980’s.
Nowadays, many international companies take sustainable development seriously. They understand that sustainable development can enhance their quality of life and their reputation in public. Sustainable development is "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." (Brundtland, 1987) Sustainability requires monitoring and managing all the person to ensure that our economy and society can continue to exist without destroying the social and natural environment during development. The sustainability includes three pillars, which are economic, social and environment, forming a triple bottom line. The triple bottom line demands that a company 's responsibility lies
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is something that affects all companies and should be an active factor in the company’s decision making. It is something all corporations need to care about. CSR is when business’ or corporations take part in an initiative or campaign for a cause that will benefit society and/or in some way make the world a better place (Taylor, 2015). Initially, Corporate Social Responsibility started to take shape around the 1950’s, but some say that it dates all the way back to the 1800s, the idea of CSR was seen (Carroll, 2007). One may think that because it is dated so long ago, it doesn’t have an important impact today nevertheless, it is proven that Corporate Social Responsibility is a pathway for entities to self benefit as they are in the process of benefitting society.
In this article, “The Truth About CSR,” authors Rangan, Chase and Karim stress the importance in aligning a company’s social and environmental activities with its business purpose and values (Rangan, Chase, & Karim, 2015, 41). Outcomes of CSR programs should be a “spillover” and not a primary focus of a business, expressing concern towards social responsibility and corporations failing to contribute to society accordingly (Rangan, Chase, Karim, 2015, 42). There is a great deal of importance in companies refocusing their CSR activities on a primary goal and in providing an organized process for bringing consistency and discipline to CSR strategies (42). Rangan, Chase and Karim want corporations to understand why it is important for them to evaluate their CSR activities and refocus them towards the goal of reinforcing the firm’s societal and environmental actions, while also ensuring their actions add to the overall purpose and values of the corporation. According to the authors, even though
The whole meaning of the book Embedded Sustainability: The Next Big Competitive Advantage is to learn about the incorporation of well-being, social importance, and ecological in the essential of business activities with no compromise in price or quality. The book shows readers that embedded sustainability allows companies to have a better turn out for a smarter way of producing products. It also allows companies to maintain a higher return for investors by reacting with new market strategies of lowering resources and raising customer expectations. In part one the authors begin with sustainability at the frontline of business.
The model of Total Corporate Responsibility is an indicator of management quality. It aims to change the behavior of corporations and companies towards sustainability. Firstly, TCR is based on Interconnectedness, Actualization, and Posterity. Interconnectedness conveys that business is not an entity isolated in society but a key element participating in an interconnected system. Companies thus have to decrease their negative impacts on the environment in order to serve the society as a whole. The model of TCR can measure their degree of engagement towards society based on their internal and external activities. In his essay “Total Corporate Responsibility Achieving Sustainability and Real Prosperity”, Dixon specifies that internal metric categories consist of risk mitigation, product development, stakeholder relations and developing country impacts. In addition, he adds: “External metric categories include industrial ecology, government relations, and dialogue and action in support of system change.” (p. 6) Thus, firms are graded
Corporate social responsibility has been one the key business buzz words of the 21st century. Consumers' discontent with the corporation has forced it to try and rectify its negative image by associating its name with good deeds. Social responsibility has become one of the corporation's most pressing issues, each company striving to outdo the next with its philanthropic image. People feel that the corporation has done great harm to both the environment and to society and that with all of its wealth and power, it should be leading the fight to save the Earth, to combat poverty and illness and etc. "Corporations are now expected to deliver the good, not just the goods; to pursue
The rising need for protection of intellectual property rights and improvement of public health lead the pharmaceutical industry to establish an agreement in 2001 with the World Trade Organization. In Sanofi’s earliest archived sustainability effort, Environmental Progress Report 2001, it states that Sanofi has taken initiatives to promote sustainable development as a reaction to the rise of wider and on going responsibilities. They have pursued these defensive efforts through promoting safety in the workplace, industrial hygiene, respecting the environment, training & investment, and many more. Sanofi is shelling out great investments for their sustainability programs. In 2001 alone, Sanofi allocated 11.2 Million Euros for a program to limit its operations’ impact on the environment. By 2008, Sanofi showed efforts of compliance with the United Nation’s Agenda 21 Blueprint for sustainability by establishing the four pillars (i.e. Patient, Ethics, Planet, and People) that serves as the foundation of their sustainability efforts . In the following year, Sanofi began its transformation to a diversified global health care company. With this, a Corporate Social Responsibility Direction was created which changed their sustainability report to an encompassing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) report. These efforts lead Sanofi to embed their ethical responsibilities and discretionary responsibilities into the company’s
Some companies may think that sustainability reporting could have a negative impact in their business. However, many businesses around the world are looking at it in the opposite manner. An example is Johnson & Johnson, a public traded company headquartered in New Brunswick, NJ. The article A Model for Sustainability Reporting, issued by IMA in 2010, states that Johnson & Johnson “began issuing formal sustainability reports in 1993 for which it has received widespread praise over the years” (Borkowski, Welsh, & Wentzel, p. 30). Johnson & Johnson is one of the top companies in the United States to fully adopt sustainability, corporate social
In this effort to create a sustainable and profitable organization, it is possible that corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies are developed and employed by the organization without CSR itself being the original motivator. In other words, sustainability can be the main motivator for organizations to establish CSR strategies. In doing this, it is possible that they are actually participating in corporate social irresponsibility (CSI). This paper will look at whether an