Corporate Social Responsibility Strategies Of BMW Company
BMW has long sought after a parallel strategy, defined as a comprehensive and holistic to keep up with the market and the newest advancements that technology has to offer and at the same time be green in the way moving forward, this is clearly seen in its CSR integration into the entire product life cycle stages and is integrated into the value chain of BMW at every level, this strategy assure that BMW will continue to be a market leader in development and corporate citizenship. The fact that BMW has a rich history stretching over a hundred years, a large supplier network and owning four brands including a motorcycle brand does make a huge difference in the industry especially that they are gradually reducing CO2 Emissions.
Complying with legal requirements is seen as a priority for the company as it integrated several systems to ensure that they are fully operational in a legal sense in an ever-changing environment. However, this March, the company’s offices in Frankfurt Am Main, Germany were raided by police officers over suspections of evading emissions test by using a illegal software, this has called for the recall of thousands of cars as a sub-sequent result, a couple of weeks ago these allegations were once again unearthed when the EU higher commission issued probe alerts to several companies including BMW to investigate the same allegations.
BMW has been largely investing in the electric motor field to that point that it is the market leader in Europe, Norway has registered the highest-purchased electric car to be the BMW’s i3 mini car. On the other hand, models of BMW (Series 3) have been randomly tested over the years and found to produce five times the official limit of emissions in Europe, which some experts say is very alarming.
The company’s interest extends to offering services like ReachNow, a car sharing service that seeks to ease transportation in metropolitan North American cities with over a thousand cars utilized for this goal alone. This investment isn’t only available in North America as BMW has also invested in DriveNow, a European car sharing company which offers the same service in thirteen metropolitan cities. Drive-now (2018), BMW doesn’t offer this service for the sake of offering it as all of the cars used are BMWs or one of its brands, it also uses a double-based system that takes into account the minutes spent and miles driven.
In the area of waste control, BMW is by far one of the best companies attending to that matter, since 2006 the company has mastered the efficient use of resources by reducing waste produced per car by eighty percent, water and energy consumption went down by over 32 percent, adding to the list of achievement that BMW has realized (and continues to realize) over the years, plus, BMW is involved in several water-related awareness campaigns. BMW is listed on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index since 1999, this keeps a close eye on the company’s activities and how they act internationally as the index is fixated on three aspects: economic, environmental and social aspects. In addition, the company has a long history of participating in environmental conferences and event, one example is the Carbon Disclosure Project, a voluntarily participation on the company part since 2014 setting an example for other companies in the industry.
Investors should have a long-term view of the company as BMW has set goals to further reduce energy and water usage and focus on cutting the purchase of conflict-minerals from certain countries that do not adhere to the normal standards of business sales, This sends a clear message that not only BMW wants to be the best in the field but it wants to do it the right too. Employees take a lot of space in BMW’s activities to keep them on track and healthy, it provides easy access to local gyms and fitness centers accompanied with healthy food offered in-company restaurants in Germany with plans to expand in every country where BMW has branches. In China, BMW has once again reaffirmed its commitment to social uplift through traffic safety sessions among other way such as developing a Chine-specific mobile application that helps with traffic issues, “We do not do one-time things, we prefer long-term commitments that involve more people”, his statement is strongly backed by the company’s funding of the ShanShui Conservation Center which indirectly provides clean water to over 600 million Chinese citizens.
At the Headquarter in Munich, Germany, employees from diverse background and age groups work hand-in-hand successfully to share their experiences in an effort to innovate and form the best competition giving the chance for everyone to chip-in in their own way. BMW, as a group has a huge influence in funding educational programs all over the world with focus on low-income countries, the overall programs cover 105 countries.
In General, BMW’s ranking is falling, in comparison to 2013 when it held the first spot on the best CSR reputation list, it fell to the forth place back in 2017 and signs aren’t looking good for BMW this year due to the pending legal and technical issues around the world.
