Our 5 corporate social responsibility heroes
What is CSR?
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become an established trend among brands and businesses – and rightly so. With just 12 years left to prevent irreversible damage to the environment, sustainability is everyone’s responsibility.
The younger generations in particular are leading the charge for better sustainability, with 81% pushing for companies to make a public CSR commitment and a further 92% preferring to buy from ethical brands.
At GingerMay, we’re working to become the world’s most sustainable PR agency. In this article, we explore five technology companies that are championing CSR and offering a great example for companies to follow.
Canon
Canon has an Instagram dedicated to its CSR activity, publishes a sustainability report annually, and runs its own project set up in support of wild birds. In addition to this, Canon is also involved with multiple projects working with young, aspiring photographers to encourage their pursuit of a career in photography.
All CSR activity comes as part of Canon’s commitment to meet three guiding goals:
- Creating new value and solving social issues
- Protecting and conserving the global environment
- Responding to people and society as a good corporate citizen
These objectives are fundamental to the overarching ambition of Canon to make a tangible difference through CSR; highlighting important areas to the brand and how it is striving to support the global ecosystem; a respectable effort that more brands could follow.
Apple
Apple is renowned for being a global innovator and demonstrates a pioneer mindset to their business strategy. This approach is also taken to their CSR activity as the organisation engages in various efforts to uphold its positive brand image. In 2018, Apple achieved its goal of using 100% renewable electricity for 100% of its operations; across its 34 facilities around the world. Wherever possible, Apple initiates its own renewable energy projects including solar, wind, and low-impact hydro. These efforts allowed the company to save 41.5 million kilowatt-hours (kWh).
Microsoft
Microsoft’s mission is to ‘empower every person and every organization on the planet to do more’. Examples of how it has put this into action include the $3 billion allocated in 2018 to minority-owned businesses, and $1.4 billion spent with non-profit software services worldwide. As a leading technology company, Microsoft aims for its CSR activity to be forward-thinking and fit for the world of tomorrow. Encapsulating this is the fact that Microsoft has helped over 12 million young people in 54 countries, providing education and experience in computer science.
Google strives to contribute to the betterment of our environment and is involved in many projects around the world that support various causes, demonstrating exceptional care for CSR. To tackle climate change, Google developed a platform that educates city inhabitants to reduce their carbon footprint called Environmental Insights Explorer, particularly useful in the new age of ‘smart cities’. A smart city is a municipality that uses information and communication technologies to improve the quality of citizen welfare; this smartness typically includes: a technology-based infrastructure, environmental initiatives and a high functioning public transportation system.
Moreover, Google is focused on hyperlocal air quality as Street View cars are now able to capture air quality in local environments around the globe, stirring cities to take more effective climate action.
Atlassian
Australian software company, Atlassian, remains the largest contributor to the ‘Room to Read’ programme in Cambodia, with contributions impacting more than 90,000 children. To date, the organisation has also donated more than 13,000 software licenses to the value of more than £21 million.
The company mantra follows the inspiring words of Gandhi – ‘Be the change you wish to see in the world’. While the company encourages everyone internally to create positive change, it also injects 1% of annual profit, company equity, and employee time to social causes.
By Louis Burr, Account Executive