Good Works!: Marketing and Corporate Initiatives that Build a Better World...and the Bottom Line

Chapter 8

Socially Responsible Business Practices: Changing How You Conduct Business to Achieve Social Outcomes

At the end of the day, it's a team effort. Our customers, buyers, fishermen and fishery managers can all make smart decisions that move us in the direction of greater seafood sustainability. The new color-coded rating system is a transparent way to provide sustainability status information. This new program, along with our promise to phase out red-rated species, deepens our commitment to having fully sustainable seafood departments.¹

—Carrie Brownstein, Whole Foods Market

A socially responsible business practice is a discretionary business practice that a corporation adopts and conducts to support social causes, to improve community well-being, and/or to protect the environment. Key distinctions include a focus on activities that are discretionary, not those that are mandated by laws or regulatory agencies or are simply expected, as with meeting moral or ethical standards. Community is interpreted broadly to include employees of the corporation, suppliers, distributors, nonprofit and public sector partners, as well as members of the general public. And well-being can refer to health and safety, the environment, as well as psychological and emotional needs.

Over the past decade, there has been an apparent shift from adopting more responsible business practices as a result of regulatory citations, consumer complaints, and special interest group pressures, to proactive research ...