CSR

Some definitions of Corporate Social Responsibility

The CSR Network defines CSR as:
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is about how businesses align their values and behaviour with the expectations and needs of stakeholders - not just customers and investors, but also employees, suppliers, communities, regulators, special interest groups and society as a whole. CSR describes a company's commitment to be accountable to its stakeholders.

Companies have been encouraged to develop socially and environmentally aware practices and policies.
international.lga.gov.uk/european_work/glossary.html

Corporate Social Responsibility
The Green Book of the European Commission "Promoting a European framework for Corporate Social Responsibility" defines corporate social responsibility as the "voluntary integration of corporate social and environmental concerns in their commercial operations and in their relations with the parties concerned. [...] To be socially responsible - the Green Book states - does not only mean to fully meet the applicable juridical obligations but also to go beyond this by investing in human capital, in the environment and in the relations with the related parties".
http://www.intesasanpaolo.com/scriptIr/investor/eng/glossario/eng_glossarioC.jsp

To be honest, I find most CSR to just be a front to make customers think that companies care and are up to date ethically. Like McDonalds' funding of sports days; I don't believe they are doing so to be socially responsible, rather if they did not do so they would lose a lot of customers who think of them as a cold, uncaring company. However, I may just be a cynic.

Madsen Pirie, the current president of Adam Smith Institute says:

"CSR should not be a firm's role. Instead, it should be determined by society as whole through the rules and laws set by government. A business therefore should simply only follow the rules and regulations set by the country in which it operates. CSR may make a firm's directors feel good to give money to local charities, but a company's responsibility should be increasing profits and adding to a nation's wealth."

I still think companies all want a pat on the back for their charitable donations as they work on the whole "photo opp" and Look At How Great We Are! feel about it. Or, perhaps I am just having a bad day and there are truley some people who care out there. Having said that, I feel that the company Lush are quite environmentally caring but maybe that is because I dont see them as a giant corporation? Is it the big bad enterprise that makes me skeptical? I'm not sure. Ask me again tomorrow.