The illusion of righteousness: corporate social responsibility practices of the alcohol industry.

Sungwon Yoon,Tai-Hing Lam

doi:10.1186/1471-2458-13-630

Abstract

BackgroundCorporate social responsibility (CSR) has become an integral element of how the alcohol industry promotes itself. The existing analyses of CSR in the alcohol industry point to the misleading nature of these CSR practices. Yet, research has been relatively sparse on how the alcohol industry advances CSR in an attempt to facilitate underlying business interests, and in what ways the ongoing display of industry CSR impacts public health. This paper aims to investigate the alcohol industry’s recent CSR engagements and explain how CSR forms part of the industry’s wider political and corporate strategies.MethodsOur study used qualitative methods to collect and analyse data. We searched for materials pertaining to CSR activities from websites of three transnational alcohol corporations, social media platforms, media reports and other sources. Relevant documents were thematically analysed with an iterative approach.ResultsOur analysis identified three CSR tactics employed by the alcohol companies which are closely tied in with the industry’s underlying corporate intents. First, the alcohol manufacturers employ CSR as a means to frame issues, define problems and guide policy debates. In doing this, the alcohol companies are able to deflect and shift the blame from those who manufacture and promote alcoholic products to those who consume them. Second, the alcohol corporations promote CSR initiatives on voluntary regulation in order to delay and offset alcohol control legislation. Third, the alcohol corporations undertake philanthropic sponsorships as a means of indirect brand marketing as well as gaining preferential access to emerging alcohol markets.ConclusionsThe increasing penetration and involvement of the alcohol industry into CSR highlights the urgent needs for public health counter actions. Implementation of any alcohol control measures should include banning or restricting the publicity efforts of the industry’s CSR and informing the public of the alcohol industry’s notion of social responsibility. More significantly, an internationally binding instrument should be called for to enable countries to differentiate between genuine concerns and spurious altruism, and in doing so, resist the industry’s attempt to erode alcohol control.

Highlights

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become an integral element of how the alcohol industry promotes itself
With renewed public awareness of the serious harm caused by alcohol consumption and the prospect of adverse implications on profits, a growing number of alcohol corporations are competing with each other to adopt CSR strategies in an attempt to portray themselves as good corporate citizens
This paper focuses on examining precisely what the alcohol industry aspires to gain from CSR, how they advance their CSR in an attempt to facilitate this underlying intent, and to what extent the ongoing display of industry CSR poses a potentially significant challenge to public health and effective alcohol control

Summary

Introduction

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become an integral element of how the alcohol industry promotes itself. The alcohol industry’s conflict of interest is so marked that today a growing body of literature takes the view that the alcohol industry takes advantage of CSR rhetoric in an attempt to achieve corporate interests [8,9,10,11]. Such literature suggests that the alcohol industry’s CSR engagement is a mechanism for the preservation of corporate interests but a platform through which members of the industry seek to invalidate a broader public health perspective on problems associated with alcohol consumption and influence the public and policy makers [12]. The alcohol industry’s CSR activities are, in the words of Peter Anderson, “a communication device to delay policy – and, they work [13].”

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