Corporate Social Responsibility PDF

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Corporate Social Responsibility (INTL 710) LULULEMON ATHLETICA

Company Overview Lululemon athletica is a clothing store founded in 1998 by Chip Wilson who was inspired to open this from his yoga class. The headquarters are in Vancouver, British Columbia and Canada. This is retail company for men and women which produces sports wear and yoga accessories. Lululemon is well known for quality products and unique styling which helps to attract the customer. Lululemon started the business in Canada and after that selling their products worldwide through online site www.lululemon.com. Lululemon has all the things which motivate people towards fitness like shirts, pants, shots, T-shirt’s, bottles, shoes, mats and so on but the only thing the people criticize about lululemon is price as they believe the cost of products are high. The quality is totally based on top class material used by lululemon to make their products high standard. The key competitors of lululemon are Nike and Under Armour. Social Media also plays pivotal role for lululemon as it advertises about their products with pictures on Facebook, Instagram and official website which helps to grow the business through online shopping. The social responsibility is the key ethic of the business. Lululemon always take care of the customers need as the purpose is to satisfy the customer so that they will give you a positive feedback of your products to other people. The most useful technique to grow the business is customer recommendation if your customer will recommend your brand to new customers, your business will definitely expand. Another important thing is how you treat your employees as they are the face of your company. Lululemon hired managers and all staff internally and arrange welfare events for them. Not only this even it provides insurance and health cover for employees. The company’s vision on sustaniility is very straight forward. They embrace social, environmental ad economic health in their organization and globally. The brand is moving forward to operate within the boundaries of nature and provides for human needs by creating opportunities for its people to live a happy and fulfilling life.

CSR activities Lululemon is a socially responsible and sustainable company. Time and again it has been taking steps to make the world a better place. It has implemented activities for the well-being of the people, planet and profit. The company is involved in creating a shared value by benefitting productivity. For a better company productivity, Lululemon takes in account and monitors its environmental impacts, energy and water use, employees health, safety and skills, and also the supply chain. Being in a textile industry, the company is bound to harm the environment. However, the brand is taking responsibility of the same has been reporting their Carbon Footprint report to Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) which is an international non-profit organisation. This organisation provides a system for companies and cities to measure, disclose and manage the environmental information. The brand has been taking baby steps to do environmental good. Carbon dioxide, a harmful greenhouse gas that is being emitted in abundance for the environment to absorb, has been a major reason for climate change around the world. Lululemon conducted a full footprint assessment in the year 2011 and ever since then has been reporting its Carbon Footprint report. For this report they consider the footprints emitted by their suppliers, product transportation, washing and drying of clothes by their customers, employee commute means etc. Turned out that product transportation accounted to the maximum emission of footprint and therefore, the company opened up a distribution centre in Ohio in 2014 to facilitate easy water transport of their goods which apparently emitted the least footprints amongst all logistics options. The brand also monitors and has reduced the electricity use in its stores and encourages green commuting for its employees. Under its recycling activities, Lululemon has been doing a great job at adapting the use of recyclable materials. The brands distribution centres have a 86% recycling rate. The brand introduced a box reuse program at its distribution centres and in the first half of the year, they successfully reused 200,000 boxes. Another popular idea that the brand is engaged in is providing a reusable fabric bag instead of a disposable paper or plastic bag. Their shoppers are made from 25% recycled content and promotes their program of recycling and decreasing waste.

Lululemon love to set goals and be held accountable. Textile-waste is a by-product of the textile industry and this waste can account to very high amount if not used or destroyed properly. Therefore, the brand has taken steps to innovatively use its textile waste that is generated by the left-over, unused part of the apparel or accessory. The brand has partnered with Debrand who help the brand convert its left-over waste into shoddy which is then used as stuffing for pillows and mattresses, boxing gloves, punching bags, insulation in homes and cars etc. 98% of the waste is being turned to shoddy and the remaining 2% waste is then sent to waste to energy facilities that power local homes (Lululemon, n.d.). The fashion supply chain is complex and hard to control. However, Lululemon has a strict vendor code of ethics to monitor and control its vast supply chain. The company claims to pay announced as well as unannounced inspection visits to its facilities to make sure that the codes are being followed. The brand also initiated the Metta project where in it contributed to literacy efforts in Cambodia. It also contributed for flood relief in Canada and promoted kid’s health programs in Atlanta.

Suggestions Even after doing this much, it's not enough for a huge company like Lululemon. The company did not sign any of the main supply chain agreements that were issued after the factory collapse in Bangladesh. The company has just given a code of conduct for (Marder, 2014). Moreover, the company should involve in a long-term CSR programs that may create an impact globally in the long-run. Most of the activities that the company undertake have short-term social benefits.

References Marder, A. (October 27, 2014). Investing in Socially Responsible Companies: lululemon athletica. Retrieved from https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/10/27/investing-insocially-responsible-companies-lulule.aspx Lululemon. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://info.lululemon.com/sustainability/our-footprint...