16.08.2023

CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY TOWARDS SOCIETY AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Corporate social responsibility is one of the current topics not only in society, but also in law and economics. Usually, it mainly boils down to the fact that all merchants and social entities that carry out activities that come into contact with nature and society are obliged to preserve and protect public interests.

Does this exhaust the commitment of companies on this seemingly limited topic?

In fact, corporate social responsibility is not subject to legal regulation and therefore lacks a legal definition in the laws. The debate on the subject is mainly in the field of ethics and boils down to whether the commercial company should be controlled more by the state, or whether a social contract is needed between it and civil society. However, it is a fact that the state does not always show sufficient concern and vigilance in the protection of nature and public interests.

In practice, as most of us have convinced ourselves, the intervention of vigilant citizens and non-governmental organizations, often and thanks to social networks, signal phenomena that irreversibly destroy natural objects. This is also the reason why corporate social responsibility is implemented under the simultaneous pressure of the state and society.

In other countries, the issue of corporate responsibility is placed in the foreground and is a matter of honor for the development of companies in social and economic terms.

Let us clarify that social responsibility is an ethical category and means that the enterprise as an organization or individual entity has an obligation to act for the benefit of society as a whole. It requires the merchant to behave ethically during his business activities and to contribute to economic development by improving the quality of life of both his workers and their families, the local community and society as a whole. This responsibility arises both for passive behavior - failure to prevent harmful actions, and for active - actions that directly contradict social goals.

Nowadays, companies should make efforts to integrate socially and ecologically in their business activities and in their relations with their partners. As part of society, as part of the environment in which they develop, companies, their decisions, their activities are judged not only on the basis of profits for themselves, their partners and shareholders, but also on the basis of how well they serve and are useful to society, based on their social meaning and purposes. In the modern business environment, corporations and their managers are forced to play a significant active role in increasing the welfare of society.

In order for this responsibility to be realized, the environment in which individual companies exist and operate, the local social and natural environment and the broad global environment in which they realize their goals, is of fundamental importance.

There is no doubt that business is an active participant in public life, engaging natural resources, attracting labor, creating material goods for society.

In many cases, business is a participant in political life. The responsibility of companies should be expressed in the optimization of natural resources at the local and national level as part of its production activity, in the results of the competition between the corporation and other organizations in the same field, the enrichment of the social environment by increasing the opportunities for work, the distribution of the positive results of the activity of the owners of the company through the distribution of dividends not only among the partners and shareholders, but also among the workers.

But the biggest link of corporate social responsibility is the link to climate change. More or less every production activity exploits the planet's resources. In some cases - in an irreversible way - poisoning of lands and waters, cutting down forests, destroying biological diversity, making the population sick, damaging the genetic code, etc.

In some cases, the profit of an enterprise can be found in a causal relationship with the deterioration of the environment and the way of life in a certain populated place. And this is exactly where the society and the non-governmental sector must intervene - to ensure the balance between the interests of the corporation and those of the citizens, of the entire society, ranking them in importance and directing the attention of the state authorities to these issues.