2016 is The Year of Corporate Social Responsibility—Here’s Why

One phenomenal change sweeping the corporate landscape is the concept known as corporate social responsibility, or CSR for short.

This concept is incredibly promising because it shows that corporations are finally starting to listen to the needs of the consumer. They are finally starting to recognize that people only want to do business with companies that they trust. People only want to do business with corporations that care about their needs and the needs of local communities and the world on the whole.

With that in mind, we’d like to dive headfirst into many of the wonderful things happening that are CSR related in 2016. Corporate social responsibility is taking the world by storm, and this is an excellent opportunity with many wonderful benefits in our consumer culture.

Why Is CSR so Important in 2016 and beyond?

To put it bluntly, corporations need to take social responsibility seriously. They need to care about their employees. They need to care about work conditions. They need to care about social justice issues that are important to consumers.

Simply put, many people are no longer willing to buy products from companies that are taking advantage of Third World workers that barely make a penny for their efforts. People do not want to wear sneakers, shirts, shoes, pants, and the like if they were created through slave labor. We’ve had enough of this nonsense and were not going to take it anymore!

Companies also need to take CSR seriously because it builds trust with their partners, consumers, employees, and even local governments. The world wants to feel good about the items that they purchase. The only way to ensure that we’re buying quality goods made under the best circumstances for the workers is to keep tabs on businesses.

Plumfund, for example, has flourished with their #GivingFeelsGood campaign and positioning themselves as a company that cares about its users and the message it sends. So, as a corporation, if you want to continue to stay relevant in 2016 and beyond, you absolutely must take social responsibilities very seriously, because people have had enough of corporations that use and abuse them and are only interested in taking their money and nothing more.

Corporate Social Responsibility Trends Taking off in 2016

Clearly, CSR is now more important than ever for a wide variety of reasons. And companies are recognizing this, because certain trends are becoming prevalent in 2016 more than they have ever done so in the past.

Some of the best trends to look out for this year and beyond include:

• Corporations are taking climate change seriously: Unfortunately, in the past many companies felt that climate change was just a myth. As time goes by, it is becoming more obvious that not only is climate change very real, but it is happening right now. We seem to suffer from devastating snowstorms during the winter, and the U.S. alone has seen its fair share of hurricanes, tornadoes, tropical storms, and more that have caused massive destruction and unnecessary death. Businesses are finally realizing that they have to do their part in order to prevent climate change from getting any worse than it already is. And thankfully, our largest and most successful corporations around the world are starting to hold climate change conferences to discuss the consequences of their actions.
• Businesses are participating in social justice: In the past, many businesses felt that social justice was off-limits to them. But now, thankfully, mainstream brands are finally starting to take a stand on important social justice issues. Let’s use gay marriage as our prime example. Many of today’s most popular brands, including Clean and Clear, H&M, Jell-O, Macy’s and more all voiced their support for gay marriage as part of the #LoveWins campaign. And quite frankly, it’s about time!
• Luxury brands + transparency = a huge win: With the Internet and social media websites becoming popular—in fact they are a staple that aren’t going away anytime soon—luxury brands are finally realizing that they have to be transparent because everybody knows what’s going on in their companies. This is a win for everyone, the luxury brands included, because they are now becoming better businesses that care more about their customers and employees. This will always be a good thing that we can all appreciate.
  As you can see, 2016 is the year of corporate social responsibility. CSR has never been stronger in the corporate world. And it’s a positive trend that we would love to see continue as time moves forward.

Please note: while Dharma was a Registered B Corp at the time of this posting, it no longer is.