Sustainability in Oil: Unpacking British Petroleum's Corporate Social Responsibility Policies

Aims and Objectives

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is one of the key elements of doing business in the twenty-first century; whereas, the organisations put efforts on giving back a portion of its profit to the society, which they operate in. This supports the company's objectives and participates in charities, which further helps to improve the well-being of the social community (Beal, 2013). Therefore, there is significant growing concern against British Petroleum to engage with CSR activities and it is internal organisational policy in North America United State (Crowther et al., 2008). Emphasis, businesses are not only faced with stockholders to make them satisfied but also strict regulations well as certain government agencies that serving as watchdog guarding the interests of their public. Environmental studies dissertation help is considered to be an essential aspect for students who aim to delve deep into sustainability issues and corporate responsibility.

This work will therefore focus on United Kingdom energy companies on CSR activities and their impact on society and critically analyse the literature review to provide qualitative information about BP the use of CSR.

Aims: CSR practices of UK energy companies and their impacts on society.

The aim of this research is to investigate the CSR practice in the UK energy companies and analyse the impacts of the society citing it is case study of CSR in the US and UK.

The following are the objectives of the study

To identify and Review of CSR practices of UK energy companies

To evaluate Positive and negative Impacts of CSR activities on UK Society

To compare and contrast CSR practices of BP and Shell

Literature review- Corporate Social Responsibility

The analytical study discovered that energy companies are increasingly being stressed to be socially responsible and go beyond the environmental and legal regulations to a more holistic approach to CSR (Halina el al). With regard to corporate social responsibility, it is central to the concept of building value for the society and to generate interest as shareholders, thus, multi-studies have found evidence that, CSR helps the energy companies to achieve its financial return as shareholders and as broad as the economy ( Rangan and Chase 2012). Noted that, if each business did what it was supposed to do effectively the business will achieve its financial and income goals, the rejection of CSR lies in a profound mistrust of the legitimate purpose of a company to do nothing but raise it is profits. Thus, CSR has a vital business role to play and generates economic assets for the organisation to succeed. In contrast, energy firms such as Shell and British petroleum do not reach the level of high expectation of CSR to aligning their strategies and practises, therefore, the companies are losing many advantages, including, economic, cultural, legal and humanitarian business activity categories. Stjepcevic & Siksnelyte (2017) supported these studies; social responsibility is the latest in the contemporary business world in the three dimensions of CSR, such as social issue economic issues and environmental issue which is becoming increasingly important in the modern business world. In contrast, with regard to British Petroleum, the company has made economic, social and environmental problems in the past; however the latest study shows that, there was a positive relationship that the company practices with CSR, therefore, the organisation appears to take all the necessary measures for determining the previous disaster. Similarly, Shell, which operates energy industry, has had history of oil spills in Nigeria but instead the company takes responsibility when such incidences occur by helping the local community in respond (Whittingham 2008). Conducted, the organisation must have corporate structure that considers the matters such as corporate social responsibility as well as profit maximisation. Thus, if energy companies such as British petroleum and Shell are implementing such structure of CSR to their activities and directing all staff, managers, or directors towards high ethical standards so the business will significantly reduce their risk.

On the other hand, British petroleum communicates to their stockholders effectively and practices on CSR in order to draw a better image for their organisation. The company wants to create an impression that they are socially responsible and strongly committed to their society and environment Corall (2015) Stated that, Social responsibility requires that the companies oversee the development of an economic structure that meets public standards. Thus, according to British Petroleum website regarding to CSR the company conducted CSR activities by helping the local community in atransparent and positive way to reduce any adverse effect that their activities might have, the company create community engagement to receive complaining document and respond in a good time (William, chief operating officer on BP 2020), emphasising the challenge for our industry is to provide this energy in an efficient and sustainable way and working closely with the government and the local community (Stjepcevic & Siksnelyte 2017). Highlighted, when we are talking about advanced CSR long-term regional and global perspective are necessary for implementing CSR in energy companies and need integrate planning. Therefore, it is essential for the organisation to practice CSR actively and implement in efficient way in order to maximise their profits. On the other hand, BP and Shell most proactively engage CSR activities not only because of the pressure to do so from the stockholders but also to minimise the risk in the industry and reduce the climate change, and this will help the organisation for long term sustainability (Mishin & Green 2013). As it is known today CSR covers a range of organisational responsibilities that companies have towards the society in which they operate. Similarly, CSR also covers the way business address the needs and beliefs of the stakeholder’s values within the day today decision-making process. In contrast Tudev (2011) stated that, CSR’s focus should not be limited to the relationships between the organisation and it is staff, suppliers’ customers and society, but also the degree they seek to protect the environment in which they operate. Therefore the literature review of this proposal focuses on CSR framework towards the society in which the energy companies operate.

Methodology

As a research technique, the case methodology is used in cases, where the study to address question about how or what and to clarify the complexities of the particular context and carefully collect and analyse data with the purpose of gaining information needed to answer the research question (Greenhill, 2004). Thus, the methods are divided into qualitative and quantitative methods, qualitative methods are investigated and emphasise explanatory discussions and hypotheses while quantitative methods concentrate on data analysis, testing and uniting (Bryman, 2012). However, in terms of methods, secondary qualitative resources approach has been chosen the project proposal. Hence, in addition to this secondary data have often opted to gather information reported earlier by someone else for another primary purpose, the use of these existing data therefore offers viable options to produce greater resources through numerous literature reviews in order to complete the project, the key advantage of secondary data is saving time and other resources as well as fairly easy availability of information, the date collection also promotes cross-culture/ international study as they provide a comparative method for evaluation finding. (Saunders , et al., 2019). In contrast, the drawbacks include consideration such as the appropriateness and quality of knowledge gathered by others for different purposes and aims.

In conclusion data collection was conducted in accordance with the above-mentioned research design methodology, which provides high validity to the results by applying current practises of qualitative methods.

Expecting outcome

It is absolutely important to feel safe in healthy environments without disparity for both the humans and animals. As a result, in many countries like the UK and the USA, energy firms for instance British Petroleum have less social responsibility for instance, climate changes and even irresponsible in their practises, which are harmful to human life in general. Therefore, by doing this research the expected outcome will be clarifying the importance of corporation social responsibility for energy industry such as British petroleum (BP) which is used as a case study in this research paper, to identify and examine how energy companies exercise their social responsibilities and enhance people's well-being to promote the economic and social environment of their communities and fight against climate changes including pollution and other elements related their activities. The aim is to review the CSR practices in UK firm in order to build a last relationship between the energy companies and society, and also to understand the positive and negative impact of using CSR for energy companies by comparing the two major energy companies such as Shell and BP. The predicted outcome is therefore positive and the final result is to active CSR activities of energy companies and limits the effect of their businesses on society.

Furthermore, conducting this research will improve my personal development in terms of enhancing my writing skills, report writing skills, data analysis, data collection and my academic skills in general.

Reference

Beal, D, Brent. (2013) Corporate Social Responsibility. 1ed. Texas: Sage.

Bryman, A. (2012) The nature and process of Social Research 4ed Oxford University. Oxford University.

Carroll, B, A. (2015) Corporate Social Responsibility Evolution of a definitional construct 1ed Georgia: Georgia university.

Greenhill, A. (2004) The research Approach and Methodology Used in an Interpretive Study of a Web Information System:International Federation for Information Processing Digital Library. Vol 143. 10.pp

Growther, D. Aras, G. Publishing, V. (2008) Corporate Social Responsibility. 2ed London: Bookboon.

Mishin, M. Green, E. (2013) Corporate Social Responsibility of British PetroleumCaroline: Lund University.

Rangan, K. Chase, A,Lisa. Karim, Sohel. (2012) Why Every Company Needs a CSR Strategy and How to Build it.Boston: Harvard Business of school.

Saunders, N, K. Thornhill, A. Lewis, P. (2019) Research Methods for Business Students 8ed Italy. Pearson CSC.

Siksnelyte, J, S. Silkstnelyte, I (2017) Corporate Social Responsibility energy sector3ed Vilnius. Vilnius University.

Tudev, O, Lkhagvasuren, E. (2011) ‘The implementation of Corporate Social Responsibility in Mongolian Business Sector; Eries Journal Vol 4 2pp.

Ward, H. Smith, G. (2015) Corporate Social Responsibility at a Crossroads1ed London. International Institute for Environment and Development.

Whittingham R, B. (2008) Preventing Corporate Accidents: An Ethical Approach 1ed Oxford: British Library.

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