Corporate social responsibility and sustainable development goals (SDG)

Corporate social responsibility is a self-formulating business model which helps an organisation to be socially accountable for stakeholders, community and for itself. Schwartz (2017) commented that corporate social responsibility is corporate citizenship in which the companies are conscious about influencing on the society including environmental, social and economic. The organisations take CSR strategy so that the organisations do not contribute negatively on the environment and society. In addition, sustainable development goals (SDG) are a collection of 17 different goals as part of the objective to transform the world. In this report, Singtel Optus Pty Ltd is chosen and it is the second largest telecommunications firm in Australia. The purpose of the report is to recommend some actions Optus could take to address a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG).

Optus is a subsidiary firm of Singtel and it was founded in the year 1981. Optus has it headquarter in Sydney. Optus mainly provides the fixed telephone service, mobile service, internet access, leased line, cable television and data transmission (Optus.com.au 2018). Optus employs more than 9,000 employees and revenue of the organisation reached AU$ 9 billion in 2016 (Optus.com.au 2018). In telecommunication industry, the companies certainly have some positive impact of connectivity; however, the telecom companies have some harmful social and environmental impact of their service on community and atmosphere. Optus involves transmitting data and voice from one user to other and this process is conducted through various types of transmission equipment. Therefore, transmission infrastructure has definitely influenced on the community as both end-users face critical issues along with wider community people. End-users face the issues in the community from the used phones, SIM cards, cables disposables, EMF radiation, children expose to unsavoury activities, product design and community people health and safety (Firli and Akbar 2016). Optus needs to be aware of the transmission which can impact on the community people and their better living. Transmission can harm the people in terms of radiation, disposal of obsolete equipment, network equipment and energy efficiently. Optus has been facing issues from e-waste and emission which has been influencing the people living in the community. Optus uses the telecom towers in the urban landscape and these towers use energy to run and these emit harmful radiation. Data centres of Optus guzzle energy and these generate waste. These factors mainly harm the environment along with community people at large with energy consumption, emission of radiation and generating e-waste.

CSR issues of Optus in three different segments

One of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) is sustainable cities and communities as more than half of the world’s population live in urban areas; however, these people do not always get the basic necessity. Sustainable development may not be achieved without transforming the way the urban spaces are built up (Undp.org 2018). In recent time, the rapid growth of the cities and communities has been coupled through rural to urban migration (Hojer and Wangel 2015). Community people expect safe and sustainable housing, clear surrounding, well-maintained transport and safe environment and improved urban planning. However, telecom companies’ tower is located near the urban area and these towers radiate harmful rays and waves, the e-waste generates near the community and the community people deprive of energy as well. With the booming of the inhabitants in the urban area, the more numbers of people would face the issue of radiation, waste and lack of energy (Raimi 2018).

Optus publishes CSR report every year highlighting majorly four factors in which they put emphasis on to develop, these four elements are the environment, people, community and marketplace. Among these four factors, Optus has been facing the issue of community engagement as telecom towers create an issue of radiation; e-waste also brings up issue and energy consumption of Optus in the data centre also creates an issue. Optus focuses on new SIM card packaging saving 50 tonnes of cardboard each year and Optus focuses on recycling of 98% of the e-waste. Optus scores 4.2 out of 5 in Australian Packaging Covenant (Optus.com.au 2018). Optus has no such plan in decommissioning of the e-waste and it creates an issue for the community people who live near urban areas. Optus tower emits non-ionising wave and this type of ray is not known to harmful for the common people. However, after a certain period of time, this wave can be harmful to the tissue and it can create adverse health problems. As stated by Yigitcanlar et al. (2015), the level of radiation allowed in global standard, many of the towers do not follow the globally accepted standard; hence, Optus is creating an issue. Optus mainly uses own infrastructure, telecom towers and fixed-line cables; however, in some of the places, Optus takes help of Telstra.  

Table: CSR issues of Optus in three different segments

For the development of Community, Optus invested already AU$ 8.2 million and Optus employs more than 1,800 volunteers. These volunteers are both skilled and unskilled to employ more than 16,000 hours to the community (Optus.com.au 2018). Optus takes help of 232 organisations through CSR activities and 7 of the organisations shared money to Future Making Programme of Optus (Optus.com.au 2018). However, the core issues of telecom tower radiation which ill-effects the community people and e-waste which also harms the society people are not solved. E-waste contains the reusable raw materials and toxic materials. Without appropriate handling of the e-waste, the people can face environment and community damage. Optus has to follow GRI guidance for the child safety, health of the community people from the e-waste and radiation of the towers. The community people have been facing the sleep disorder, cardiovascular disease and memory loss due to EMF radiations.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and impact of telecommunication industry

Conclusion 

Correlation between profitability and CSR cannot be overemphasised and in the telecommunication industry, CSR activities provide a competitive advantage and economic success to the organisation. Optus’ network and the tower have been creating issues of radiation, e-waste and power consumption which harm the community people, mostly in urban section. Adverse effects of telecommunication industry are observed in the environment as well as in the community. Optus fails to create a relationship between the corporate organisation and the community at large. The CSR report of Optus showed the bright sides of environment and community engagement; however, it does not show the ill-effects of radiation and e-waste of telecommunication among the community people.

Optus needs to lead from the top and Optus management must have a long-term commitment and vision. Optus has aligned itself with United Nations Global Compact’s 10 principles and it has strived to become a truly sustainable business. Optus needs to identify the places in Australia which have been suffering from radiation of towers and e-waste. Optus should focus on unique skills and resources along with the expertise to create the positive impact on current and future generations. Long-term commitment towards the society would help in building the positive community engagement.

Optus should innovate the CSR activities towards building cities and community more engaged. Optus can start the brand initiative to start the crowdsourcing as a part of the CSR activity. Optus management can check the degree of ill-health of the people due to network radiation and sharing random kindness to the society will help to engage more. Optus’ R&D team must research to discover some equipment which prevents not to spread the e-waste and radiation to the common people.

Optus must focus on sales channel through which they can invest more in CSR so that the community people will see that Optus is doing something good for the urban people in developing cities and community. The Corporate Governance of Optus will allocate the internal resources to take the CSR strategy to help in building sustainable communities. Making the cities safe is meant in ensuring to access the affordable housing and proper drinking water and cleaner environment.

Optus should arrange local events so that Optus can learn what the problems face by community people are. Optus should communicate their investment, strategies and positive planning to the people so that community people show the compassion. Arranging housing, medical treatment and providing monetary help for the poor children will help to do community engagement.

Reference List

Firli, A. and Akbar, N., 2016. Does Corporate Social Responsibility Solve ROA Problem in Indonesia Telecommunication Industry?. American Journal of Economics, 6(2), pp.107-115.

Höjer, M. and Wangel, J., 2015. Smart sustainable cities: definition and challenges. In ICT innovations for sustainability(pp. 333-349). Springer, Cham.

Kodua, P. and Mensah, P., 2017. The role of corporate social responsibility in influencing brand loyalty: Evidence from the Ghanaian telecommunication industry. In Marketing at the confluence between entertainment and analytics (pp. 77-90). Springer, Cham.

Optus Telecom. 2018. Available at: https://smb.optus.com.au [Accessed 30^th Sept 2018]

Raimi, L., 2018. Leveraging CSR as a ‘Support-Aid’for Triple Bottom-Line Development in Nigeria: Evidence From the Telecommunication Industry. In Corporate Social Responsibility: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications (pp. 860-877). IGI Global.

Schwartz, M.S., 2017. Corporate social responsibility. Abingdon: Routledge.

UNDP.  2018. Sustainable Development Goals. Available at: https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/sustainable-development-goals/goal-11-sustainable-cities-and-communities.html [Accessed 30th Sept 2018]

Yigitcanlar, T., Du, F. and Dizdaroglu, D., 2015. Towards prosperous sustainable cities: A multiscalar urban sustainability assessment approach. Habitat International, 45, pp.36-46.

Zaidi, S.A.H. and Lal, P., 2018. The State of Corporate Social Responsibility: A Case Study of Telecom Sector. Salu-commerce & economics review, 3(1), pp.14-33.