The present stage of the development of economy and society is characterized by the socialization of business caused by public, political and economic factors. The increasing interest is shown to social, ecological and ethical aspects of any company’s activity along with the economic one. An objective need is the formation of social responsibility of managing subjects, built into the main strategy of a company’s development. Social responsibility assumes the changes in a company’s behavior. Moreover, it changes the conditions of the companies’ management, influences the formation of the purposes and achievement of the results of business, investment and other activities. There is a transformation of a main objective of the enterprise - maximizing profit - to the multi-purpose goals considering the interests of all parties of economic activity - workers, consumers, contractors, a state and society as a whole.
The modern society provokes inadvertent obesity among population, especially among children, promoting consumption of a high-calorific food with a big maintenance of fats, and, at the same time, stimulating an inactive way of life due to a technical progress. These social and technogenic factors promote the growth of obesity rates during the previous decades. The World Health Organization came to the conclusion that the lack of spontaneous and labor physical activity of children in combination with overconsumption of a fat and high-caloric food advertised by fast-food restaurants became a principal cause of obesity epidemic in the world. Thus, the companies should be socially responsible in front of population.
The recent trends of the development of a global economy show that more companies, which work in the local markets and the companies considered as transnational corporations and working in the world markets actively introduce the standards of “sustainable investments” in their activities.
Corporate social responsibility is a concept, according to which the organizations consider the interests of a society, incurring responsibility for the influence of their activity on customers, suppliers, workers, shareholders, local communities and other interested parties, and also on environment. This obligation is beyond the obligation established by the law to observe the legislation and assumes that the organizations voluntary take additional measures for the improvement of a life quality of workers and their families, and also local community and a society as a whole.
Social responsibility of business is a voluntary contribution of business to a society’s development to the social, economic and ecological spheres, connected directly with the primary activity of the company and beyond the minimum defined by the law.
The concept of a sustainable development is based on the assessment of a triune result of the activity of managing subjects: in economic, ecological and social spheres. The social development at which positive results in all three spheres are at the same time provided, and will be characterized by the stability can provide a stable existence of the mankind both in the present and in the future. Thus, the given case study raises the question of the social responsibility of the companies for the sake of the children’s health.
Sustainable investments …