Categorization of Companies

Reasons we chose our companies

Given the variation in government regulation and consumer concerns worldwide, CSR policies vary widely by company. Three main determining factors for how CSR manifests are the industry of a given company, its product, and its size. An agricultural company for example would have a different way of approaching CSR than an oil company. An agricultural company might focus its energy on organic food while an oil company might spend its resources on promoting safe drilling practices. A multinational medical machinery distributor might have the ability to vet its suppliers where a mom and pop hardware store might not. What does CSR look like for a company whose product is inherently beneficial compared to one whose product is inherently harmful?

The measure of CSR is not just a single measure of how much “good” a company does, but also how much energy is put towards the betterment of society. With this distinction in mind, we created four categories that break companies into more comparable groups.

Companies whose product benefit society and/or consumers, like solar panel or organic food companies. Given the touted benefits of organic food on personal health, Whole Foods was chosen to represent this category. Whole Foods is also especially relevant to the Lick community due to the proximity of a store to the campus.
Companies whose products harm either the environment or consumers, such as tobacco and oil companies. Oil’s harmful impact on the environment in both its extraction process as well as its post-consumer effects made it perfect for this category, and British Petroleum was chosen to represent this category. BP and oil companies in general are pertinent to the Lick community because oil is the basis of our metropolitan society. Furthermore, the BP oil spill in 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico sparked a great deal of debate across the nation concerning the responsibility and accountability of oil companies.
Companies whose products are not inherently harmful or beneficial, like clothing or furniture companies. Apple computers are perfect for this category in that computers do not directly affect consumer or environmental health. Apple is also very relevant to the Lick community in that Apple products, including iPhones, laptops, and desktop computers, are extremely abundant in the Lick community.
Companies that provide services rather than a physical product. This includes companies like financial firms as well as social media companies. The company chosen for this category was Twitter, as much of the Lick community is plugged into social media, and CSR issues have been raised recently with Twitter’s 2012 move to San Francisco.