CSR Project - Disney - Final assignment. PDF

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The Walt Disney Company A CSR Report by Mahin Ali Ahmad Abbasi, ID: 3083738, Class 21

A Brief Overview The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney, is an American media entertainment giant that I am sure we are all well aware of. The company also has a huge market presence in the amusement park industry, attracting an average of 50 million Disney Land/World visitors a year. Disney’s scale of operations mean they often records industry-leading revenue and income numbers in their yearly financial statements ($70 billion and $11 billion, respectively), with a market capitalization of $130 billion currently. Combined with that, more than 200,000 people are employed to the company. Therefore, the need for effective implementation of their Social Corporate Responsibility and its global impact cannot be understated. In the report to follow, I will try to highlight the main CSR policies implemented, the company model, the subjective and objective results, future company goals, and finally strengths/weaknesses of the company’s activities.

Main Policies Implemented Disney prides itself on its strong commitment to a code of ethics within the organization. They have a Standards of Business Conduct in place to ensure they conduct themselves ethically and in compliance with the law. Each year, the company publishes a report to highlight the importance of this, with proper guidance present in it to help their employees go about their work with equity and legality. The company also has a six-pronged approach to its Corporate Social Responsibility. The six pillars being Integrity, Trust, Teamwork, Honesty, Play by the Rules and Respect. Each pillar has its own set of instructions/guidelines. Integrity outlines the general standards of the company and how they conduct their business. Trust is all about safety, quality and the protection of their customers’ and employees’ privacy. Teamwork entails a stand for fairness, dignity and diversity in the workforce and with the customer. Honesty is the company’s initiative to eliminate conflicts of interest within their operations, and also strongly emphasizes their stance against corruption. Accuracy in financial recordkeeping and accounting also being a major part of this statement. Play by the Rules is Disney’s Commitment to Lawful Business Practices. This includes competition laws, food and safety, etc. And finally, Respect is the company’s “commitment to the community”. This outlines their international presence, labor standards, how they approach environmental issue and their charitable and philanthropic endeavors.

As set out in their annual reports, the Walt Disney Company seeks to put forward and establish a positive sustainable environmental legacy for the future generations. As a consequence, Disney has pledged to minimize the company’s overall impact on the environment. More specifically, they have set out to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, conserve water usage, and their energy consumption. Along with this, the company invest heavily each year in ways to correctly identify their carbon footprint and understand the direct/indirect impacts of their operations, in order to develop innovative and realistic plans for minimizing them. Constant, consistent and transparent communication of these works is also a major part of what Disney plans on doing. According to press releases, the top management at the company want their customers and the general public to be made aware of the work their doing in this regard, and to also have the ability to answer any queries the people might have. In 2019, the organization brought online a new 270-acre, 50 megawatt solar facility at Walt Disney World. This facility is expected to generate enough power from the sun to operate two of our four theme parks in Orlando yearly. In addition to this, Disney has conserved upwards of 300 million gallons of water from 2013 to 2019, as well as integrating 292 acres of solar panels at Disney Worlds globally. The company has also planted more than 9 million trees in similar initiatives worldwide. They also eliminated single-use plastic straws and stirrers, a reduction of more than 175 million straws and 13 million stirrers annually. And all of their hotels and cruise ships are also transitioning to refillable in-room amenities, reducing plastics in guest rooms by 80%.

Again, according to press release and yearly reports, the Walt Disney Company considers giving back to the community a vital portion of their activities, with charitable donations and philanthropic work in the millions of dollars yearly. Hand in hand with that, Disney also collaborates with non-profit organizations all over the world to bring about positive, long-lasting change to communities. Staggeringly, in 2019 alone, Disney gave $338.2 million in donations to nonprofit organizations that bring comfort, inspiration, and opportunity to kids, families, and communities around the world. This is on top of the $100 million Disney Conservation Fund contributions that are channeled to wildlife saving organizations since 1995. The company also operates the Walt Disney Company Foundation that awards college scholarships to students in need each year. One hundred and fifty academic awards are granted to graduating high school students of Disney employees and cast members from around the world each year. Scholarships are awarded based on students’ academic achievement, extracurricular activities, community service and demonstrated leadership. Models/Standards to Which the Company Refers According to reports and press released, Disney does not follow a specific like IS0 14001 or EMAS. However, as stated above, the company takes its Corporate Social Responsibility extremely serious, and makes sure they take an environmental perspective in everything they do – including their charitable and philanthropic contributions.

Results Achieved The Walt Disney Company’s Corporate Social Responsibility program can be considered a success in almost all aspects of the word. From one standpoint, this globally organized push from the company has garnered huge praise from the public, and we often find Disney at the forefront of any corporate discussions on CSR. In addition, most articles that assess CSR effectiveness of different companies, tend to put Disney at the top of their year-end lists, praising them for their continued investment in the field. Charitable contributions made by Disney also mean they are among the top contributors to nonprofit organizations, and ensure the general public stay well-informed about the importance of giving back to the community with their yearly Corporate Social Responsibility reports and press conferences. Being an industry leader in mass media entertainment, Disney often ends up acting as an example-setter to many other firms, as they witness the global benefits a well thought out CSR program can have on the reputation of a company. Consumers care strongly about how we operate as a company, and so Disney announced the latest round of investments through our Supply Chain Investment Program, intended to foster scalable solutions that address systemic labor issues in global supply chains. Since 2012, Disney has invested nearly $19 million in innovative projects worldwide.

Away from the corporate side of things, Disney’s CSR has helped improve the lives of many people as well. As mentioned extensively in this report, the Walt Disney Company run and operate a number of funds that help pay for the college expense of their employees’ children in need of financial aid. Along with that, Disney also run volunteering programs, where their employees help clean up land pollution, plant trees, and distribute food and clothing to people in need of them. Since 1983, more than 11 million hours of volunteer work has been done by the company’s initiative. Through the Disney VoluntEARS Grants platform, employees and members can turn their hours of volunteer service into a financial contribution to a charity of their choice. The creation and subsequent box office success of the Black Panther movie can also be considered a CSR win for Disney in its goal to achieve a more equitable, diverse environment. The movie’s record-setting reception, put it among the top 10 grossing movies of all time — becoming not only a cultural phenomenon, but breaking the long-held notion that diverse culture movies do not become international blockbusters.

Future Goals The Walt Disney Company considers its future targets an important tool to help measure their progress and guide their ambitions. They are in the process of attaining their long-term vision of net zero greenhouse gas emissions, along with conservation of water resources. Disney’s future policies and goals can be broken up into three main categories: Their aim to reducing emissions, waste diversion, and finally water conservation. Reducing emissions is at the forefront of this plan, and by 2020 they plan on reducing their net emissions by 50% compared to a 2012 baseline. So far in 2019, they have achieved a 47% reduction from the base year, and they predict a similar increase in this percentage. These numbers and predictions are backed up the company’s actions, where we can see a clear push towards more sustainability. Waste diversion is another dimension where Disney are working on to reduce their global carbon footprint. Landfill waste is planned to be diverted and incinerated to ensure a much smaller environmental impact. By 2020, they aim to divert 60% of waste from landfills and incineration. And so, positively, in 2019, they achieved a 57% diversion rate. In terms of water conservation, Disney set out a target to reduce usage levels in comparison to a baseline of 2013. They achieved this 2018 water target to hold global potable water use flat to their 2013 levels. They also achieved this target for the second consecutive year in 2019, and are predicted to the same in 2020 as well.

Even with this year’s global pandemic effectively putting a stop on most economic activities, and many companies have experienced disruptions, Disney’s commitment to environmental stewardship remains steadfast and they look forward to releasing a new generation of environmental goals for the company by the end of the calendar year. Disney is involved in funding the redevelopment and protection of natural areas like forests and reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere through investment in high quality, certified Natural Climate Solutions. They support projects that are developed using expertreviewed procedures grounded in science and resulting in proven emissions reductions. They have also invested in over 25 projects around the world that conserve habitat for wildlife, create jobs, protect water resources, and reduce impacts from floods and soil erosion. This looks to continue far into the future as well, as Disney persistently pledge more and more resources to natural climate solutions in the coming years.

Strength and Weaknesses Disney has received worldwide recognition for its efforts pertaining to better the company’s CSR policies. In fact, it was named a leader in CSR by the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship and Reputation Institute in 2009. It was also the winner for Jane Goodall Global Leadership Awards for Corporate Social Responsibility in September 2011. This particular prize is awarded to corporations that aim to better the world by taking significant steps demonstrated through their business practices. One such example of the charitable nature of the company is evident in Walt Disney’s efforts to help Haiti, after the earthquakes in 2010. Disney’s CSR strategy’s strength lies in the fact that even though it appears that the strategy is solely philanthropic (societal issues, natural environment, volunteerism, solutions for community), its goals are interlinked with the strategic objectives of the company’s different businesses. The strategy manages to support the expectations of stakeholders of the mass media, entertainment, theme parks and resorts, consumer goods, and retail conglomerate. For example, to satisfy stakeholders’ interests regarding the environmental impact of amusement park operations, the company’s corporate social responsibility programs are designed. Another example is Disney’s major focus on Volunteerism. They offer free tickets to a million people in exchange for a day of volunteer service from an organization of their choice. This encouraged over one million people in the United States to commit to service efforts to volunteer in their communities while also bringing more people to their theme parks. This is because even if the people did not spend on the tickets, there are many gift shops and restaurants whose sales might increase with this initiative.

Ultimately, the business is promoted to a larger global population of customers and other stakeholders due to the implementation of successful corporate social responsibility strategy contributing to the satisfaction of Disney’s corporate mission and vision statements.

Even after all the successes previously mentioned, as the Walt Disney Company is one of the largest media corporations in the world, it has received a wide variety of criticisms of its content, business practices and executives. Some famous instances of when Disney was accused of being racist in its movies are when Mickey Mouse, Disney’s well-known mascot, was shown to be dressed in blackface and the cunning Siamese cats in Lady and the Tramp. Another big example of this is the famous 1992 American musical fantasy film Aladdin. One of the film’s songs, “Arabian nights” had the following lyrics originally, "Where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face/It's barbaric, but hey, it's home." The Middle Eastern community obviously offended by the lyrics, demanded Disney to amend them. Disney, in what was not the best decision, changed the beginning of the song to "Where it's flat and immense and the heat is intense” but kept the lyrics calling the place ‘barbaric’. This was perceived as nowhere near adequate as there multiple still racist undertones to the movie (sleazy, burlesque characters, merchant cutting off the hand of the female protagonist because she unknowingly took an apple from his stand to feed a hungry child). Moreover, Aladdin and Jasmine were the only characters with light skin and Anglicized features and were portrayed as ‘good’ in contrast to other dark-skinned characters who were shown to be cruel, greedy, and vicious with Arab accents and distorted facial features. Disney’s older original princesses are also often criticized for their lack of feminist values and their inherent sexism. They seem to all preach the same story about a damsel in a distress waiting

for her prince charming to save her. All these princesses had the same docile, traditionally ‘domestic’ characteristics that were popular at the time. However, with the new movies (after 1989), Disney has corrected its stance and has produced more and more movies about the female protagonists taking stand for themselves and adventurous.

Many of Disney’s animated movies are alleged to have been plagiarised without any credits. A notable example is the Lion King which is said to be based on a Japanese manga called ‘Osamu Tezuka’. In March 2014, Disney was sued for the teaser trailer of the movie Frozen, by an animator Kelly Wilson who believed it was plagiarised from her movie ‘The Snowman’. After four months of legal battling, the federal judge ruled in Wilson's favour, citing evidence that "the sequence of both works, from start to finish, is too parallel to conclude that no reasonable juror could find the works substantially similar."

Conclusion After doing research for this report, I can conclude that Disney as a company does take its Corporate Social Responsibility seriously. They have shown dedication to the cause since the 1980s, and have only increased their investment of time and money into this philosophy over the years. There is empirical evidence that backs up the company’s claims of caring about the environment and their community. I only hope this dedication and investment is not hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic, and they continue to take “greener” steps and keep giving to charity even if revenues run a bit low in the next year or so.

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