Some customers don’t just prefer to deal with responsible companies, but insist on it. The Co-operative Group, for instance, place a strong emphasis on its corporate social responsibility and publishes detailed ‘warts and all’ reports on its performance on a wide range of criteria from animal welfare to salt levels in its pizzas. Find out about the co-operative group’s approach to CSR on the Co-operative Group website.
Reducing
resource use, waste and emissions doesn’t just help the environment – it saves you money too. It is not difficult to cut
utility bills and waste disposal costs and you can bring immediate cash
benefits.
There are some other benefits too:
(1) A good reputation makes it easier to recruit employees.
(2) Employees may stay longer, reducing the costs and disruption of recruitment and re-training.
(3) Employees are better motivated and more productive.
(4) CSR helps ensure you comply with regulatory requirements.
(5) Activities such as involvement with the local community are ideal opportunities to generate positive press coverage.
(6) Good relationships with local authorities make conduct of business easier and smooth.
(7) Understanding the wider impact of your business can help you develop new products and services.
(8) CSR can make you more competitive and reduces the risk of sudden damage to your reputation (and sales). Investors recognize this and are more willing to finance you.
Q.6. Write a brief note-on “integrated social audit”.
Ans. Integrated Social Audit: The concept of integrated social audit does not merely extends horizontally in the sense of extending to peripheral events which impinge on the social welfare activity under evaluation. Ideally, the social auditor should be associated at the time of programme design so that, with his background and field experience, he might recommend the appropriate methodology to evaluate the social changes and the machinety in terms of staff and resources to monitor them. He might be able to point out peripheral factors which might distort the programme or its evaluation. He might help in making a projection of the benefit to cost ratio and give valuable advice on how long to continue the inputs and when to switch strategy. In other words, the ideal social audit will start with a preaudit of the programme document and design.
All this is a far cry from what can be done in practice today. The difficulties which face social audit will appear to be insUrmountable and many a State Audit organisation is deterred by them and do not undertake any worthwhile social audit. In fact, however, social audit is an immediate result oriented exercise and even a report prepared tentatively and with a lack of self-assurance will have something to contribute The principal difficulty, as has been highlighted earlier, is the non-existence of appropriate social accounting and reporting systems or even a rudimentary system of evaluation of the social changes created. Why not then make this the central thrust of the first attempt at social audit by examining a number of programmes from the point of view of a lack of monitoring and evaluation machinezy and methodology This surely isa straightfoi-wr way ofgaining acceptability for social audit as an important tool in the management of national affairs.
Q.7. What is social audit? What are its advantages and purpose?
Ans. Meaning of Social Audit: A social audit is a way of measuring, understanding reporting and ultimately improving an organisation’s social and ethical performance. A sncial audit helps to narrow gaps between vision/goal and reality, between efficiency and effectiveness. It is a technique to understand, measure, veri1, report on and to improve the social performance ofthe organisation Social auditing creates an impact upon governan It values the voice of stakeholders including marginal ized/poor groups whose voices are rarely heard. Social auditing is taken up for the purpose of enhancing local governance, particularly for strengthening the accountability of management and transparenr in local bodies.
Advantages of Social Audit
(a) Trains the community on participatory local planning.
(b) Encourages local democracy.
(cJ Encourages community participation.
(d) Benefits disadvantaged groups.
(e) Promotes collective decision making and sharing responsibilities.
(f) Develops human resources and social capital.
Purpose of Social Audit: This tool is designed to be a handy, easy to use reference that not only answers basic questions about social audit but also gives, reasons for conducting social audit and – most importantly gives easy-to-follow steps for all those interested in using social audit.
The purpose of conducting social audit is not to find fault with the individual functionaries but to assess the performance in terms of social, environmental and community goals of the organization. It