(b) How could pursuing a corporate environmental strategy both add to CFS’s competitive ad

Question

(b) How could pursuing a corporate environmental strategy both add to CFS’s competitive advantage and be

socially responsible? (5 marks)

Answer 1

正确答案：
(b) Increasingly, firms are becoming aware of their social responsibility and their need to develop strategies that are designed to
meet this responsibility. Such responsibility can take many forms and is not a new phenomenon – many 19th century firms
looked after the housing, education and health needs of the communities where they were located. Michael Porter and Claas
van der Linde in their article ‘Green and competitive’ show how the traditional view that there is ‘an inherent and fixed tradeoff:
ecology versus economy’ is incorrect. This traditional view sees the benefits of government imposed environmental
standards, causing industry’s private costs of prevention and clean up – ‘costs that cause higher prices and reduced
competitiveness’. Porter and Linde argue that with properly designed and implemented environmental standards, firms will
be encouraged to produce innovations that use a range of inputs more efficiently, e.g. energy, labour, raw materials, and in
so doing increase resource productivity and in offsetting the costs of environmental improvement make industry more not less
competitive. All too often in their opinion, companies resort to fighting environmental control through the courts rather than
using innovation to increase resource productivity and meet environmental standards – ‘environmental strategies must
become an issue for general managers’.
CFS are, therefore, correct in seeing environmental standards as a positive step towards becoming more not less competitive.
Key stakeholders in the form. of both government and customers are looking to their suppliers to become more ‘green’. These
challenges are increasingly international and global. Building in positive environmental strategies can help CFS differentiate
itself and through improved resource productivity become more competitive. Clearly, they will need the environmental
scanning devices to become aware of environmental legislation and change. Awareness then can lead to analysis in the
monitoring of macro environmental challenges and the development of a SWOT analysis to match the company’s strengths
and weaknesses against the threats and opportunities created by environmental standards. Tools of strategic analysis such as
PEST, five forces and value chain analysis lend themselves to understanding the significance of the environmental change
and how it can stimulate innovation and, through innovation, competitive advantage.