Being a Corporate Global Citizen?

What makes a corporate global citizen?

Being a corporate global citizen is the ability for a company or organisation that is able to sustain communities, social, environmental, political and economic terms. There are factors in which a business entity must understand to provide socially and sustainable practice along with the ability to provide economic returns for their high end stakeholders. Such debated factors or issues surrounding the operations of an entity includes the environmental impacts which include carbon emissions, the social impacts such as human rights and equality for labours and many more. Therefore the factors that challenges an entity is a concern for the community, organisation as well as the government in how these entities will operate.

Are corporations doing the right thing as a global citizen?

Supporting global awareness is a key area in which businesses and large multinational corporations must incorporate in their objectives and mission statements. However, just being aware of global issues such as providing aid to third world countries or sponsoring an environmentally friendly campaign, does not do the job. As many know, governments are trying to incorporate tactics or shall we say, ‘taxing’ these multi-corporations for doing the wrong thing – but at the end, it is a fail to them.

For instance, when the Gillard Government started to enforce taxes on emissions, a huge controversy of the outgoing cost prices jumped to almost double for these companies. Many of Australian consumers felt a huge hit on the head when prices of consumables – even luxury items began to soar in early 2012. Even though redundancies being made to the people in the Australian economy, these big money making machines are emitting large volumes of carbon into the air regardless.

In all cases, what these multi-national companies are doing is just a way of trying to change the views of us people. Whether it be a program, environmental initiatives or political engagement, do we really think that they are doing the right thing? Unless proven via sighting what is actually written in the reports or in their operations, we can only judge by the information that is given to us – that is through annual reports or sustainable governance reports. Reports that have been reviewed by the head executives before it being published to the public to look good in the public eye may be a reason that not all companies are doing the right thing.

Who knows? I certainly can’t label these companies for being unethical or unreasonable in their operations. Maybe it is just the media that is trying to unfold the bad practices of such reputable business like the harsh working conditions in mainland China or excessive use of cheap labour in Sir Lanka or is it that the businesses are really putting their efforts to solve one area of sustainability and not the humanity of their resources?