MANAGING CORPORATE SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY

Abstract

In business environment, corporate social and environmental responsibility is becoming increasingly an important issue. In today's world there are many components to consider when managing corporate social and environmental responsibility. The most dangerous are: air, water and soil toxifcation, climate change, exhaustion of resources (oil, water, forests), destruction of biological diversity and extermination of animal and plant species, environmental noise pollution, unmanaged waste; which overcome the potential of nature to purify and renew itself. There is no recipe for actualizing corporate social and environmental responsibility. However, the companies should be aware of this fact and accordingly, we may observe that the long term survival in the 21st century depends on wise leaders of companies and learning organizations who would manage CSR and environmental responsibility as an imperative. It is important to take into account philosophical aspect of such kind of managing, where the main questions are: what is the responsibility of the companies that generate long-term competitive advantage and what is type of implication of such success on the environment, society and the consumers. By adopting social and environmental responsible practices, company achieves better performance, reputation and overall commitment. It generally has a positive effect on company‘s support for the environment, adoption of corporate environmental responsibility and green practices. Governmental support strongly creates the effect of green management and encourages policies that are supported by financial aid and technical resources. The meaning of a corporate social and environmental responsibility concept of companies is a conscious ethical investment based on innovations and moral upgrading of managing. Such approach can be seen as an investment for sustainable value creation. The main aim is long term gain. The great social capital and environmental safety can be obtained through such kind of managing approach. It is important to underline that high and middle management can upgrade their ethical approach by managing corporate social and environmental responsibility with high integrity and deep respect for the environment, in order to avoid irreparable form of exploitation. That is the new way of doing business by implementing the understanding for specific needs of different environments, which involves elaborating the new responsible business models. It can be concluded that responsible development of sustainable innovations has to be done in order to respect positive socio-economic, ethical, political and environmental features and differences. Traditional, PR-seeking corporate and environmental responsibility is no longer enough in 21st century, because the paradigm of human survival is inseparable from our global ecosystem. Proactive corporate social and environmental responsibility jointly brings harmony to the whole society.