Essay Title: Compare and contrast CSR policies of PARKnSHOP and WELLCOME
CSR policy refer to the policies that are implemented by companies to contribute to society and to give better livelihood for our offspring. CSR policy becomes to be a more significant aspect in influencing the brand reputation and image of companies nowadays. The consumers, producers, environment and community will benefit a lot from the good CSR policies implemented by the companies.
Therefore, CSR policy will show the responsibility of companies not only to maximize the profits but also to give back to community. Moreover, CSR policy is one of the factors of abstracting the investment from venture capitalists and stakeholders. Hence, carrying out good and comprehensive CSR policies will definitely enhance the competitiveness of the brand of companies.
Based on the advantages of CSR policy, this essay is going to compare and contrast the CSR policies bring by PARKnSHOP and WELLCOME in the supermarket chain in Hong Kong and provide some recommendations for the improving the CSR policies from WELLCOME.
To start with, PARKnSHOP’s CSR policies and WELLCOME’s resemble each other in the aspect of environment. First, they put an effort to food wasting problem in Hong Kong, which is reducing food waste through recycling non-edible food to be compost or animal feeds and donating edible food to Food Angel,Feeding Hong Kong and Food For Good.
As a result, over 1300 tonnes of donated food had made for over 150000 meals to the needy in Hong Kong. Besides that, their CSR policies are alike in the aspect of reducing energy consuming. WELLCOME installed energy-saving lighting systems and heat recycling systems to maintain 1/3 of the light after opening hours and to collect waste heat, while PARKnSHOP installed smart meter and LED lights.
Although they have different methods and ways, the goal for both of them using these facilities is the same, which is to minimize the energy waste. In addition, they had made the effort to raise the awareness of environmental protection of children and citizens through holding various workshops and training courses.
To illustrate, PARKnSHOP have set up funding for giving each primary school $5000 to nurture environment awareness among children for running a green project programme and have held green-themed tour of marine environment. For WELLCOME, it has set up a “No Plastic Bag Day”, Reusable Bag Design Competition and reporter training course for children to gain knowledge of environmental protection.
On the whole, PARKnSHOP and WELLCOME’s CSR policies in the aspect of environment have lots of similarities including food reduction and recycling, energy saving and promotion of environmental protection.
WELLCOME’s policies give benefits mainly to the audiences which are local family, children and senior citizens, while PARKnSHOP’s policies also give benefit to non-local audiences and charities, in addition to the mentioned audiences above. For instance, PARKnSHOP raised funds through donation boxes, sold souvenirs to support humanitarian work and Red Cross and hold fund raising campaigns to help relief efforts and recovery from disasters which had hit the different regions in the world.
Consequently, PARKnSHOP’s CSR policies have wider range of beneficiaries than WELLCOME’s. Secondly, WELLCOME’s CSR policies put more emphasis on the socially vulnerable groups than PARKnSHOP’s. For example, WELLCOME had set up Wellcome Cares Team to visit dementia elderly and sick children during the Christmas and held workshops for single parent family and underprivileged family to strengthen the bone between single parents and their kids through various activities, but PARKnSHOP just gave opportunities to underprivileged teenager to participate soccer competitions.
On the other hand, PARKnSHOP take more efforts to bring out CSR policies to benefit customers and employees than WELLCOME. PARKnSHOP always attach importance to build a harmonious relationship with customers and staffs. Taking food quality as an example, PARKnSHOP had set up a vegetable-monitoring system and a Food Safety Centre, which devote to provide customers with fresh and safe food by monitoring the growth of the vegetables and sampling inspecting the safety of fresh food.
Furthermore, PARKnSHOP offer discount for end-to-day and close-to-expiry clearance sales to customers. When it comes to the concern for employees, PARKnSHOP provides vocational qualifications, which is recognized by Hong Kong’s qualification frame, for attending trainings.
Overall, PARKnSHOP’s CSR policies are more comprehensive than WELLCOME’s to benefit all the stakeholders.
Finally, conclude the aforementioned similarities and differences of CSR policies between PARKnSHOP and give recommendations to one of them. They are both getting similar policies to reduce energy consuming and food waste in many ways to protect environment, but WELLCOME’s policies got less beneficiaries than PARKnSHOP’s in the community aspect and PARKnSHOP did better than WELLCOME in accelerate relationship with customers and staffs.
Therefore, there are some recommendations to WELLCOME to improve their CSR policies and build better reputation and impression. First, WELLCOME should consider benefiting not only the locals but also non-locals in policy making if it wants to be more responsible for the entire world.
Overall, WELLCOME can become a better supermarket company by implementing the suggested policies above.
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