Social Responsibility as a Business Owner: What It Means and How to Practice It

As a business owner, you have a responsibility to not only your customers but also to the community and society as a whole. This responsibility is known as social responsibility, and it’s an essential part of running a successful and ethical business.

Let’s explore what social responsibility means in the context of a small business owner, and how you can practice it in your business.

What is Social Responsibility in Business?

Social responsibility in business is the idea that businesses have a responsibility to operate in a way that benefits society and the environment, not just their bottom line. This means considering the impact your business has on marginalise people and the community as a whole and taking steps to mitigate any negative effects even if this means operating outside of business and social norms.

What are Social Norms, Folkways and Mores?

To understand social responsibility, it’s essential to understand social norms. Social norms are the unwritten rules that govern behavior in society. There are two types of social norms: folkways and mores (said more – rays).

Folkways are informal norms that are based on everyday behavior and are relatively minor. For example, saying “please” and “thank you” or holding the door open for someone are examples of folkways.

Mores, on the other hand, are more serious and have a greater impact on society. They are the unwritten rules that govern morality and ethics. Examples of mores include not stealing, not lying, and respecting the rights of others. Mores usually are linked with sever social consequences if they’re overstepped or broken.

Positive Impacts Socially Responsible Business Owners Can Make

Socially responsible business owners can make a positive impact on society in many ways. For example:

Supporting Marginalised Businesses:

Supporting marginalized businesses is an important aspect of social responsibility for small business owners. By sourcing materials and products from marginalised business owners, you can help create economic opportunities for those who are often underrepresented and overlooked in the marketplace.

Marginalised businesses include those owned by people of color, women, LGBTQ+ individuals, individuals with disabilities, and other underrepresented groups. These businesses often face challenges such as limited access to funding, discrimination, and lack of visibility in the market.

As a socially responsible business owner, you can take steps to support marginalised businesses by actively seeking out and partnering with these businesses. This can involve researching and identifying businesses that align with your values and goals, building relationships with owners and suppliers, and promoting their products and services to your customers.

Some other ways to support marginalised businesses include:

Sourcing products and materials from these businesses for use in your own products or services.
Partnering with these businesses for collaborations and joint ventures.
Promoting these businesses on your social media and website to help raise awareness and increase visibility.

By supporting marginalised businesses, you can help promote greater economic equity and create a more diverse and inclusive marketplace. Additionally, by partnering with these businesses, you may also be able to access new perspectives, ideas, and approaches to doing business, which can ultimately benefit your own business and clients.

Reducing Waste:

Reducing waste is a crucial component of social responsibility for businesses. By implementing sustainable practices like reducing paper usage or recycling, businesses can reduce their impact on the environment and support First Nations custodians in their environmental protection activities.

In addition to reducing the environmental impact, reducing waste also has social benefits.

Reducing waste can create jobs in waste management and recycling industries, which can support the local economy. By choosing to work with local waste management and recycling companies, businesses can contribute to the growth of these industries and support the creation of more sustainable jobs in their communities as well as creating a demand for environmentally responsible and sustainable businesses.

Furthermore, supporting sustainable waste management practices can also benefit marginalised communities who are often disproportionately affected by environmental pollution and waste management issues. These communities are more likely to live near landfills and incinerators and suffer from health issues caused by environmental pollution. By implementing sustainable waste management practices, businesses can help reduce the negative impact of waste on these communities and support their environmental justice efforts.

When it comes to supporting First Nations custodians in their environmental protection activities, businesses can work with those communities to reduce waste in ways that are culturally and environmentally appropriate.

Overall, reducing waste is not only crucial for the environment, but also for social sustainability and supporting First Nations custodians in their environmental protection activities. By implementing sustainable waste management practices and working with environmentally responsible businesses & local waste management companies, businesses can create positive social and environmental impacts.

Giving Back:

Giving back is another part of social responsibility for businesses. It involves contributing to the community in ways that go beyond providing goods or services. Here are some ways that socially responsible businesses can give back:

Donating a portion of profits to charity: Many businesses choose to donate a percentage of their profits to charitable organisations. This can be a great way to support causes that are important to your customers and your community.
Volunteering time: Another way to give back is to volunteer your time to local organisations or charities. This can include participating in community events, organising a fundraiser, or offering your skills and expertise to help a worthy cause.
Supporting local initiatives: Supporting local initiatives and social justice causes is an excellent way to give back to your community. Supporting local initiatives can include sponsoring a local sports team, supporting a local arts festival, or contributing to a local Aboriginal corporation..
Supporting social justice causes: Supporting social justice causes is a way you can harness your privilege through your business to amplify social justice movements and stimulate positive social innovation. It can look like public sharing of support, sharing marginalised voices, voting, signing petitions, writing letters to politicians or power-holders, or attending protest, to name a few.
Offering pro-bono services: Many businesses choose to offer their services for free to non-profit organisations or charities. This can be a great way to give back while also utilising your expertise to make a positive impact.
Offering equitable scholarships, sponsorships or pricing: Offering equitable scholarships, sponsorships or pricing for marginalised communities is an excellent way for socially responsible business owners to demonstrate their commitment to equity and inclusion. By providing access to services that may have been otherwise unattainable, business owners can support the advancement of marginalised communities with equitable scholarships, sponsorships and equitable pricing strategies. Click here to watch a FB LIVE I hosted on Offering Scholarship for Aboriginal People and Marginalised Communities.
Equitable monetary contributions for marginalised businesses and content creators: Consider supporting businesses and content creators that are run by individuals from marginalised communities. Making donations especially to content creators who create free content that involve emotional labour to provide education related to the marginalisation of their community and social justice. This can support those creators to continue to share their voices and important messages. Plus, it helps to create a more diverse and inclusive business environment, and provide valuable support to those who face systemic barriers in entrepreneurship.

Giving back can have numerous benefits for your business, including increased customer loyalty and positive brand recognition. It can also create a sense of purpose and fulfillment for you and your team, knowing that you are making a positive difference in the world.

Components of Social Responsibility as a Business Owner

There are three main components of social responsibility as a business owner: input, output, and upleveling. Let’s touch on each of them.

Input of a socially responsible business owner:

This refers to the resources and materials you use to create your products or services. As a socially responsible business owner, you should strive to use sustainable and ethical resources. Here’s a list of some things to consider:

how the business sources their materials
is fair and ethical treatment of employees and contractors upheld (as a minimum standard)
what does the business support? (where does their public support or donations go to?)
is the business environmentally friendly and engage in environmentally sustainable practises
is the business inclusive and have diverse teams
does the business participate in equitable business practices
does the business positively impact marginalised people or communities

As a business owner, you’re able to choose who you do or don’t do business with. Who you choose to do business with, has a rippling impact into the world.

Output of a socially responsible business owner:

This refers to the impact your business has on society and the environment. As a socially responsible business owner, you should take steps to reduce your negative impact and increase your positive impact.

This is a reiteration of supporting marginalised communities, reducing waste and giving back as mentioned above.

Another output to consider is the emotional, mental and spiritual output of your business. This is particularly pertinent if you’re a service based business that works in the wellness, healing or coaching industries. How you conduct your serviced can harmful impacts to marginalised communities if you’re not adequately aware of the cultural, social, political or religious circumstances that surround that person and their healing.

Supporting marginalised communities:

A socially responsible business owner should strive to support marginalised communities by assessing their networks, and resources for potential opportunities to centre and amplify marginalised voices.

Think about how you can metaphorically ‘pass the mic’ in your business to amplify marginalised voices and enable it to reach your network of followers or other types of audiences. This could be by clicking the “share” button so it gets shared on your public social media feed; by inviting marginalised people on a LIVE, podcast episode, or blog.

You can also be a connector. If you can see wonderful amplification, business, sales, or collaboration opportunities, explore your relationship with each party and if it’s appropriate, be the connector that introduces them to one another.

Another thing you look into is your money and time recourses. Are you in a position to make donations? I have already mentioned donating to charities but what about donating to projects created and led by marginalise people. If you love their work and what they do in the world, consider investing in them and their projects.

Equitable business practices:

A socially responsible business owner will implement equitable business practices that ensure fair treatment of clients, employees and contractors. Please be sure to know that fair doesn’t equate to equal. Fair means you take into account the types of marginalisation and oppression a person has experiences and provide a services which allows that person to experience the same level of wellness, or joy, or healing that their privileged counterparts have access to. Equitable businesses listen to marginalised communities and adjust or innovate their business in a way that’s inclusive of the wants, needs and desires of the marginalised group.

This could look like:

Equitable payment strategies like payment plans (without additional fees), sliding scale pricing, pay what you can or paying from the heart pricing, income vs dependant table pricing etc.
Adjusting the way you deliver your service depending on the physical, mental, or cultural needs of the client.
Offering pro-bono services, scholarships or sponsorships.
Ensuring business policies and guidelines provide layers of protection for marginalised people with your community.

Inclusion and accessibility:

Striving to create an inclusive and accessible business that is welcoming to people of all abilities, races, genders, and backgrounds, is something that socially responsible business owner does.

The inclusion of marginalised people must become part of the whole business process. Listening to what marginalised people say they need and having a way those groups can have input or provide feedback is the start of the process. Having marginalised peoples needs, wants and desires consistently present and considered through every step of the process means there is always a place for marginalise people in your business regardless if they are there or not. Your space is ready to welcome them in whenever that marginalised person chooses to engage in your business.

With this level of inclusion, the accessibility of your business to marginalised people will also be considered and catered for. A socially responsible business will be socially conscious of the barries that stop marginalised people from accessing their business and they take action to reduce or remove those obstacles. having marginalised people accessing the business in an easeful and pleasant way is the aim of accessibility.

Supporting social justice causes:

Socially responsible business owners support social justice causes that align with their values and mission. They don’t turn away from the injustice that’s happening and pretend it doesn’t exist. Instead they acknowledge it and explore how they can do or say something that’ll contribute to social justice.

Here’s what supporting social justice causes and movements can look like:

advocating for policy changes that promote equitability and justice on your social media and other spaces where you have an audience or following.
Participate in community activism.
During voting time, learn what each candidate stand for (or against) and vote in an equitable way.
Volunteer to support social justice causes that resonate with you and your business.
Offer resources to support those causes.
Make money donations to support the cause.

Ethical marketing and advertising:

Ethical marketing and advertising practices that don’t exploit or marginalise any group of people. This may be a topic new to you but believe me when I say,

We MUST be having conversations about ethical marketing and advertising! Without it, the western world will be unintentionally stuck in a hamster wheel of perpetuating marginalisation and oppression through our business.

Standard business marketing and advertising is based on outdated methods which were build to support the privilege system. Much of it is based in tactics that harm others, are non-consensual, are culturally appropriated, or are done purely to increase profit margins.

As a socially responsible business owner, some ethical marketing and adverting considerations are:

avoiding harmful stereotypes of groups or communities of people.
promoting diversity in advertising only when you’re consistently learning about and taking action to be inclusive and be a safe space for diverse groups of people.
avoiding greenwashing, rainbow washing or other forms of misleading advertising. This is when a business will use symbols to mislead consumers into thinking that the business supports environmental or social justice causes for the purpose of capitalising on the sales that symbol will generate.
avoid Blak cladding where a business will partner with an Aboriginal person in order to unfairly exploit equitable opportunities offered to Aboriginal businesses and disadvantage the Aboriginal community in the process.
avoid cultural appropriation. Using something from a culture outside your own to benefit yourself or your business in some way.
avoid marketing or advertising in a way that causes trauma or harm to the person in order to manipulate them to buy.
avoid non-consensual selling. Cold calls and spamming peoples inboxes with sales pitches is non-consensual selling. If you don’t have permission to jump into their private 1:1 spaces, you’re engaging in non-consensual selling and it’s a perpetuation of rape-culture.

As you can see, there’s quite a list here. If you’d like me to go into more datil on these, please let me know in the comments section.

Upleveling your social responsibility as a business owner:

Like everything in business, if we aren’t upleveling ourselves, our skills or our knowledge, neither can our business. Social responsibility is exactly the same. Because the conversation and standard around inclusion, equitability, accessibility and so forth are constantly evolving, so does social responsibility. It’s either proactive or responsive actions taken by a business and is directly linked to what’s going on socially in the world.

Being socially responsible is also committing to uplevel in this area of business. Here are some ways you can continue to uplevel as a socially responsible business:

regularly assign time to listen to different communities of marginalised people. For both general topics and for ones specific to your industry.
attend info session, webinars and masterclasses offered by marglinalise poeple.
complete online courses created by marginalised people.
learn more about yourself, your privilege and how you participate in upholding the privilege system
become aware of unconscious biases you have in relation to different groups of marginalised people and do the work to amend them.

In Conclusion

Social responsibility isn’t a title that is earned. It’s the action a business takes to be socially responsible. It’s a verb. A doing word. Striving to be socially responsible and taking action to fulfill that responsibility is something that everyone benefits from. You, your business, clients, community and the world all win when you commit and take action to be a socially responsible business. It doesn’t get much better than that!

If you’d like my support to strategically innovate your business into a socially responsible one, get in coenact with me. You’ll find a was to contact me around this post.

Unit next time, stay socially conscious and take socially responsible action today!

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog and for supporting my work towards creating a more socially responsible business community. If you enjoyed this content and would like to show your appreciation, please consider donating a cup of coffee to me at https://ko-fi.com/louiseoreilly. Your donation helps me continue creating valuable content and spreading awareness about social responsibility in business. Every little bit counts, and I truly appreciate your support.