Corporate governance, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), can be defined as a system by which corporate businesses are controlled. Corporate citizenship, which is a facet of corporate governance, encompasses corporate social responsibility. Corporate governance is not restricted to big corporations only, but it extends to all businesses and especially those businesses that aim at profit maximisation.
And so, corporate social responsibility entreats businesses to ensure that they carry out their duties without negatively impacting the people/societies as well as the environment.
Big corporations just don’t start out being big, but rather, they grow through different stages. Suffice to note that some of the most successful brands aren’t just profit-centred but also take considerable care not to realise profits at the expense of people’s lives and the environment. Today, everyone who has tasted the negative impacts of climate change agrees that the environmental sustainability gospel should have been preached aeons ago. However, it is never too late to start.
To that end, the future of brands is closely tied to how much they value other stakeholders like the local communities, customers and, but not limited to, the environment. Small businesses might not have the resources to give back to the community on a large scale like big corporations, but as a business owner, you must ensure that your services or goods do not contribute to pollution or even harm customers. This is because, if customers are dissatisfied with the products or negatively affected by the services being offered, such a business will be cancelled, and that is usually the beginning of its downfall.
As such, small businesses need a paradigm shift from merely centring profit realisation to ensuring that the people and the planet are not destroyed in a bid to realise immense profits. Small businesses can no longer bury their heads in the sand and assume that this duty or business model only applies to big corporations, especially if such small brands want to grow and reach greater heights. And if a brand succeeds in centring the trinity of business (people, planet and profits), then such a brand will be unstoppable.
By Golda D. Abesiga for Nymy Media
