Social responsibility as part of the Livity youth marketing agency Essay

Social responsibility as part of the Livity youth marketing agency - Essay Example Society expects corporations to get involved in the community and to act in a socially responsible manner. Customers support companies that are ethical in their dealings with internal and external stakeholders. Social responsibility can be defined as the principle that businesses should contribute to the welfare of society and not be solely devoted to maximizing profits (Investopedia, 2012). A company that believes in the value and importance of social responsibility is the Livity youth marketing agency. â€Å"Livity is a socially responsible youth communications agency that works directly with young people every day to produce co-created campaigns and content for brands, broadcasters, charities and local and central government that achieve client objectives† (Livity, 2012). The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate ways to achieve social responsibility at Livity. The organization performs advertising campaigns to a diverse group of corporate clients including Google, BlackB erry, C4, Virgin Media and Big Lottery Fund. A way for the company to improve its social responsibility program is by donating the time of its employees to work on projects for nonprofit organizations. The company can set a quota of how many hours it will donate during a fiscal year. Nonprofit organizations interested in labor donations must file an application with the administration of Livity. The expertise of the team at Livity can help a lot of these organizations get noticed by the community. The operations of Livity currently use a lot of paper. Deforestation is a serious environmental problem that must be addressed by corporations worldwide. â€Å"The net loss of the world’s forests is estimated at 7.3 million hectares per year† (Facingthefuture). Some of the causes of deforestation are fires, industrial consumption and population growth. The United States, Europe and Japan consume approximately 22% of the paper worldwide. Livity can take a stance to act in a so cially responsible manner if it changes its paper utilization policy. The company can formulate a long term plan with the ultimate goal being to transform the company into a paperless environment. The use of technological tools is essential for companies to switch from traditional paper usage to a paperless office. A way to train employees to learn how to work in a paperless environment is to expose employees to virtual teams. A virtual team convenes and operates with members linked together electronically via networked computers (Schermerhorn, Hunt and Osborn, 2003). A simple first step to apply social responsibility to paper usage is to purchase only recycled paper. Another option for the company is to substitute the use of pulp based paper with another material. A company in Australia called Papyrus Australia Ltd (PPY) invented a new form of paper called banana ply paper. Banana ply paper is a new form of paper made out of the trunks of banana trees. The trunks of banana trees ar e a renewable source. Livity can negotiate a partnership with Papyrus Australia to license the manufacturing process in order to produce banana ply paper to supply the yearly needs of Livity. An environmentally friendly and socially responsible action that Livity can take is to sponsor a recycling program in the community. The company can set up a recycling program with the scope of covering an area of 100 square miles around the corporate headquarters office. In the future the target is to increment the reach of the program to 500 and 1,000 miles from the corporate headquarters. Some of the materials that will be picked from the homes of the participants of the program are paper, plastic and aluminum. The people that recycle must separate each material into separate bags. The company will also perform recycling in-house.