Companies’ Description
Discuss About The Educational Leadership And Administration.
A company can be defined as a voluntary association organized and formed to carry on a profitable business. People establish companies with an aim of carrying out business to make profit. Since 1990s, companies are required to be transparent about environmental and social impact of their production and business activities (Zsolnai, 2011, p. 25). This pressure comes from different stakeholders: employees, communities, consumers, shareholders, Non-Government organizations and Governments. This papers looks at social responsibilities of two automobile companies; Mercedes-Benz in Germany and Toyota in Japan.
Mercedes-Benz is a global automobile company found in Germany. The company traces its origin when Karl Benz created the first petrol-driven car. The company which has its headquarters in Stuttgart Germany is famous for making luxury vehicles. The company main products are: International combustion engines, buses, trucks, and luxury vehicles. The company also offers automobile repair and financial services to their customers.
Mercedes-Benz social report indicates that the company has put great emphasis on the social issues whereby it ensures that the communities are sustained and benefits from projects undertaken by the company. The company engages local communities in the projects to ensure successful implementation. The key motives of the company is to improve quality of education, facilitate provision of safe and clean water, improve on communities health and provide improved infrastructure facilities. The company which boost of being an environment sensitive organization has been keen to give back to the nature. The company’s report indicate that the company has predominantly worked to ensure that it protects the environment in which it thrives.
Toyota Motor Corporation is a global automotive company with its headquarters in Japan. The company was founded in august 1937 by Kiichiro Toyoda. Toyota Motor Corporation has its headquarters in Toyota, Aichi in Japan. The company which is ranked fifth-largest in the world in terms of revenue employs approximately 365,000 workers worldwide. The company is the world largest manufacturer in the automobile industry with the ability to produce more than ten million vehicles since 2012. The company is the largest listed company in Tokyo japan and the market leader in encouraging its customers to buy hybrid vehicles to minimise on the effect of pollution. The main products of the corporation include: commercial vehicles, engines and luxury vehicles. It also provides leasing, banking and financial services to its customers.
The social report by Toyota Motor Corporation indicate that the company has been working hard to contribute to a sustainable advancement of the society. The organization has set traffic safety, education, health and the environment as their priority initiatives in addition to social contribution through their main business law.
Differences Evident between the Two Companies
Differences evident between the two companies in terms of the range of social, environmental and economic issues dealt with in their reports and the depth of the coverage on specific reports
The social reports of the two automotive companies have taken into consideration social, environmental and economic issues. The two reports have touched talked on common issues regarding: community, human rights, environment, management approach, governance and safety. The two reports however differ in terms of reporting. While Toyota has used eight chapters in the report (society, environment, economy, sustainability mobility, back-up, indicators, CSR projects) Mercedes-Benz have used have used six chapters (social contribution, Benz CSR, customer satisfaction, management, environment and respect for the society)
Management approach: while Mercedes-Benz have covered the management approach in seven pages, Toyota have covered the approach in five pages.
Community practise and Human rights: Mercedes-Benz have covered two topics here, the two topics are community practise and human rights. On the other hand, Toyota have have only covered about human rights at the work place.
The two organizations adopted Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) in their reporting which is accepted globally. However, the reports are not in accordance with the structure and guidelines of GRI framework. The companies need to adjust their report as per the guidelines so that readers can navigate through the reports easily.
Sustainable development goals (SDGs) are 17 goals that cover social economic issues that were set by the United Nations (Gehman, Lefsrud, & Fast, 2017, p. 7). Though the goals are interrelated, each one has its own targets to achieve. Social economic issues covered under SDGs include water, climate change, poverty, health, education, hunger, energy, sanitation, environment, urbanization, and social justice. The relevance of SDGs varies with countries, industries and companies.
According to Japan SDGs headquarters, the five priorities areas among the targets and goals of SDGs are: urbanization, good health, energy, environment conservation, and climate change. Being an industrial country, Japan has prioritized on sustainable development goals which mainly focus on human health, energy and environment. Companies are associated with huge consumption of energy. If the government does not take necessary measure to ensure that the country have enough and regular energy supply, the country production might be affected in future with an increase in the number of big industries. Given the number of industries in Japan it is evident that the environment of the country is at risk (Mohan, 2016, p. 208). This would lead to a change in climate affecting the country’s ecological systems. Industrialization is highly associated with urbanization, most people tend to move to urban areas in search of better jobs. This causes problems in housing and create huge traffic jams as it is evident in Japan.
Strengths and Weaknesses of Reporting Evident in the Reports
German is among the top industrialized countries in Europe. Like any other country under the United Nations, Germany has to observe sustainable development goals set by the UN (Frederick, 2011, p. 76). Some of the top SDGs that Germany need to put as apriority are: social justice, hunger, urbanization, poverty, climate change and health. Germany has high poverty levels with 2% of her population living in severe poverty, 40% living average standards. The government should thus prioritize on SDGs which aim at improving the living standards and protect the environment.
The two companies Mercedes-Benz and Toyota Motor Corporation are rivals in automobile industry. The companies make use of the same raw materials, same production processes and target the same market. Despite the differences in their production locations, the companies have similar sustainable development goals and thus representing the entire automobile industry (Frederick, 2011, p. 67). The companies prioritize in health, empowerment of all people through education, poverty eradication, environment, climate change, health and safety of their customers.
According to social reporting by the two companies, the companies have been at the forefront in addressing the sustainable development goals that are relevant to them and the industry in an effective way. According to Mercedes-Benz social report, the company have focused on providing skill development and quality education to underprivileged students in in India. This has greatly helped to improve lives and empower underprivileged Indians. On the other hand, Toyota Motor Corporation is run in accordance with the belief of Japanese people that “Monozukuri” is all about helping people to develop. According to Toyota’s social report, the company haa been providing support across the globe to develop human resource through education (Firm, 2013, p. 34).
Mercedes-Benz has helped in promotion of health and sanitation in India. The company believes in the slogan “Think healthy, think wealthy”, the company promotes healthy living by providing clean drinking water, medical camps and promoting sanitation. Mercedes-Benz through their safe roads campaign have saved lives by ensuring that drivers and pedestrians observe road rules and regulations. In their social report, Toyota has reported to participate in promotion of health and sanitation across the globe. According to the report, The Company have also helped to save lives but promoting traffic safety. The company has addressed the issues of traffic safety by integrating cars, people and the traffic environment with an aim of saving lives by eliminating traffic casualties. This awareness which has been run since 1960 has targeted pedestrians and drivers educating them about traffic safety
Sustainable Development Goals
The automobile industry has also been effective in addressing the issues of environment. Germany and India are some of the fastest growing countries but slow in preserving the ecology and the environment. The major changes that have brought about changes in the environment of the two countries according to Mercedes social report are: climate change, increasing population, natural calamities, deforestation and loss of biodiversity. Mercedes-Benz has thus being at the forefront to ensure that the environment of the two countries have been resettled by funding planting of tress and educating people on the importance of preserving tress. Toyota on the other hand has helped in conservation of the environment in Japan and abroad by providing environment education, undertaking reforestation and supporting environmental programs through their workers volunteer activities (Mendel, 2016., p. 56)
Social reporting should ensure that an organization performs its social duties and promotes accountability (Gwartney, 2016., p. 78). The quality of social reporting approach adopted by an organization is influenced by clarity of the information that the organization provides. It is the duty of an organization to provide the stakeholders with all the relevant information they require. An organisation must provide a balance between the corporate responsibilities and the corporation powers. From the analysis of social reports by the two automotive companies; Mercedes-Benz and Toyota Motor Corporation, it is evident that the two companies have presented their reports in accordance with the criteria identified (Baumann-Pauly & Nolan, 2016, p. 143).
Comparability-the company has applied social reporting policies and standards consistently from one point to the other (Zsolnai, 2011, p. 23).
Completeness- Mercedes-Benz social report contained all the relevant parts in a social report.
Disclosure- the Company has disclosed all the information about their activities concerning helping the society.
Continuous Improvement- every year, the company improves on the manner in which it participate in helping the society and reporting as in accordance to the laid out criteria.
The company has also observed Evolution, Management policies and systems and External verification in their report.
Inclusivity, external verification, comparability, evolution, management policies, systems, completeness, continuous improvement and disclosure.
Mercedes-Benz
Inclusivity- Mercedes-Benz has not been inclusive in its environmental and social impact activities meant to help the society. From the report, it is evident that the company has only concentrated in providing social help in India and Germany. (Vásquez, 2016., p. 56).
Conclusion
Giving a report on social performance enables organizations to manage their environmental and social impact developed in the course of doing their business. Problems coming about as a result of sustainable development are enormous, and it is clearly evident that organizations have ability and responsibility to bring about positive change on the state of environmental, social conditions and the world’s economy.
Sustainable Development Goals Relevant to Japan
By providing social report organizations are able to track, measure and improve their performance. By measuring the potential business risks, the Organizations are able to manage the issues. By taking a proactive role to analyse, collect, and report steps taken by the organization to reduce risk, companies are able to control the message they want delivered to the shareholders. Public pressure by different shareholders has proven to be a successful tool for promoting Transparency and social responsibilities.
Public pressure has also helped organizations to manage their impacts. Social reporting promotes accountability and transparency. This is because organizations are made to disclose information to the public. This enables stakeholders to track an organization’s performance with regard to environmental conservation and labour conditions in the production area and compare the performance of an organizations with the performance of others on social performance.
References
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