Listening Level : MID ¦ CSR

1) STUDY STEPS:
1) Read the questions below
2) Listen to Carl talking
3) Answer the questions.
4) Listen again to check your answers
5) Check your answer at bottom of page.
6) Listen again while reading the transcript

2)COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS:
a) What does CSR stand for ?
b) What 6 things does Carl question if the board owe?
c) Who does he describe as ´the start and the life of the business´?
d) Why do somebody buy shares in business even though they don´t get big earnings from them?
e) What do other people want from their investments?
f) Why don’t customers want to know about any problems?
g) What have customers been asking about recently?
h) What 2 things do people want to choose?

TRANSCRIPT

Been thinking a lot about Corporate Social Responsibility recently. It’s a really big topic. Where does it start? Where does it end? What does the company, what do the directors, what does the board owe to the organization for which they are responsible?

What do they owe to the employees that work for them? what do they owe to the customers that they provide goods or business or services for? What do they owe to the town that the business is situated in? What do they owe to the country that the business is situated in? What about the many countries that the business is situated in?

What about the people who put money in the business, the shareholders? So many aspects to Corporate Social Responsibility, not to mention, of course, the responsibility to society as a whole, to help to improve society´s conditions. I guess, probably the only way to deal with it is to go one by one.

In the case of the shareholders who really are the start and the life of the business, they’re not so difficult to achieve Social Responsibility for because they have very simple needs. Their needs are only ¨ please, deal honestly, please make sure that my money doesn´t disappear, please give me confidence in the future so that I´ll keep my money with you, protect the share price so that the value of my investment increases or certainly does not decrease. And wherever possible, if we can, a little dividend would be nice¨ and that´s all they want.

Many people buy shares in businesses even though they don´t get big earnings from them because they want somewhere safe to put their money. Other people want big venture capital and they want to get big returns on it and take big risks with it. But in general, even those people really just want the ability to be able to rely upon the management team to meet the needs.

The customers, self-evidently, want good quality of whatever you provide, at the right price, at the right time and their dream for Social Responsibility is … if you have any problems, they don´t want to know about it. It´s none of their business. And that´s probably enough for most customers.

Recently, a lot of customers have been asking about ethics and about ´where do you precure your goods? Are they from sustainable sources? Are they from ethical sources? ` And so on and so forth. And honestly, it´s very important, and if it’s not politically driven, if it is genuinely driven by people who understand all the circumstances, I think it´s a good thing, I really do. I believe it drives everybody in the right direction. And if everybody understands that, you know, you can´t go and buy something that you want for less than it actually costs ethically to make and therefore they don´t buy those things, I think it´s very, very laudable. But people, by definition, want to choose where they buy and what they pay and that generally governs what business does much more than any declaration of social responsibility.
If people will pay more, or people in fact don´t want to pay more but want to pay less, that´s where the goods will be manufactured and that’s how they´ll be manufactured.

ANSWERS
a) Corporate Social Responsibility
b) Organization / employees / customers / town / country / shareholders
c) Shareholders
d) Want somewhere safe to put their money
e) big venture capital
f) . It´s none of their business.
g) Ethics
h) Where they buy and what they pay