Are Todays Firms Reactive or Proactive in Their CSR Interventions? The Case of UK Retail and Food Manufacturing Firms

In the modern era of retail and food manufacturing ethical and socially responsible business conduct is increasingly becoming more of a premium to competing firms. This is principally due to the CSR values held by younger generations of customer as well as wider societys growing sphere of expectations regarding what constitutes the ultimate purpose of contemporary business to maximise profits for shareholders or to improve relationships with stakeholders. The main aim of this research study was to critically analyse and evaluate to what extent modern UK retail and food manufacturing firms are proactive and/or reactive in their CSR supply chain interventions. The findings generated in response to this titular aim for the study broadly reveal that supply chain interventions based exclusively on CSR were rare during the period 2018-2021. Most interventions identified were either examples of greenwashing (i.e., Sainsburys shoreline plastic collection initiative whilst continuing to sell products in unrecyclable plastic containers) or reactionary measures to achieve bare minimum legal compliance.
The data results produced by the study also potentially signify that whereas waste management interventions are given low priority by modern day UK retail and food manufacturing firms, equality and diversity interventions are given high priority. The methodology employed to generate the aforementioned results involved conducting a systematic literature review with supporting case study interpretation on recent CSR interventions made by Kelloggs, Boohoo.com, Sainsburys and Bakkavor. On balance, this approach to methodology enabled the study to make best use of the high quality and up-to-date grey literature available in the field but without the associated trade off of low practical value. The main recommendation advanced by the study based on the findings is for UK retailers and food manufacturing firms to set hard and quantifiable targets for future CSR strategies to focus the collective attention and resources of their primary stakeholder partners and to eliminate customers perception of greenwashing and/or PR-speak.

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