Assessing corporate social responsibility concepts used by a Brazilian manufacturer of airplanes: A case study at Embraer

There are many definitions for the term Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), but it can broadly be understood as a commitment that an organization must have towards society, expressed through actions and attitudes that affect it positively. In Latin America, in particular, this field is still at an initial stage, and few companies have actually developed and integrated CSR practices as part of their management system. This paper aims to present a set of CSR initiatives and projects developed by a Brazilian aircraft manufacturer, Embraer, considered an example of best practice in sustainable management practices. The paper also verifies if these activities are integrated into the company's management model in a mature way, as proposed by the literature. The research method used here was a case study with semi-structured interviews with a set of employees responsible for CSR at the company. The results gathered allow the projects developed at the company to be clustered around six main areas: excellence in education, social partnership programmes, entrepreneurship, corporate social responsibility, volunteering and preservation of the history of the Brazilian aeronautics industry. All these projects are exemplary managed and critically analyzed in relation to aggregation of value they provide to society, thus ensuring suitable results. As a conclusion of the survey, it was observed that Embraer has integrated the CSR practices with other existing management systems in a harmonious and mature form. The scientific value of this research lies in the presentation of CSR practices developed by one of the most important companies in Brazil, with a management system directed to excellence. Other companies and researchers can use these practices as a benchmark, or as examples of good CSR practice leading to tangible results

Comparing the Climate Change Actions, Targets and Performance of UK and US Retailers

It is often held that the UK has been something of a leader in its response to climate change, and that the USA has been more of a laggard. Whilst much of this debate relates to government policy, in this paper we consider whether this is true when it comes to corporate action on climate change. We use the retail sector to explore this question. This sector is important because of its own greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and because of the emissions it influences through its supply chains and value chains. On the basis of extensive reviews of corporate reports and other publically available data, we find that companies in the UK are some way ahead of their US counterparts in terms of the actions they are taking (in particular in relation to their willingness to focus on their supply-chain-related emissions), the ambition of the emission reduction targets that they are setting for themselves, and (while acknowledging the difficulties in making direct performance comparisons) the rates of improvement in their energy consumption and GHG emissions. We therefore conclude that at least some of the wider claims about the relative performance of the UK and the USA on climate change are mirrored in the manner in which corporations are responding to climate change