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Harvard Business Review Re: CSR & COVID-19

lucypei

This concluding quote really summarizes the position of this article: "No one expects or requires major companies to take extraordinary measures to help their many stakeholders, but the bold and creative steps they take today to deliver immediate assistance will define their legacy tomorrow."

The author is managing director of FSG, a global social-impact consulting firm. He is lauding how acts of un-mandated CSR like Johnson & Johnson's pulling Tylenol off shelves or his own company's sliding-scale pay-cuts instead of layoffs are still talked about and used as cases in business school. He is using the "business case for CSR" line of argument to encourage companies to take steps such as giving their employees loans at a lower or no-interest rate, or doing the equivalent of "buying gift cards" from small suppliers. These actions, which don't even require any loss from the corporation, are portrayed as providing a huge boon to the company's reputation and employee loyalty, and still being above and beyond what is expected or mandated of corporations. 

The author opens with stating that the government's stimulus package is too little too late, which unfortunately is true, and then saying that the only option is for corporations to voluntarily engage in these primarily loan-based forms of assistance. 

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christopher.vi…

One of the possible solutions to air pollution is the truck replacement program where old trucks are being replaced with newer trucks to "curb diesel emissions, and that low-sulfur fuels were making ships’ engines run cleaner." However, this is difficult to implement because it can affect the jobs of many truckers and trucking companies by limiting how many pickups they can make.

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christopher.vi…

Officials are looking to change something like the trucks within the port industry in Newark to counteract air pollution while keeping in mind the jobs of many who can be affected by the changes. The port of New York and New Jersey supplies 270,000 jobs and $36 billion in economic activity for shipping. If the possible changes were implemented, they must make sure that this industry is not impacted negatively because that can hurt the communities connected to the industry.