Samsung Environmental Responsibility

Samsung’s Environmental Responsibility:

Striking the Right Note for Corporate Survival

Nicole Rudeau

Bidisha Mazumdar

Abraham Mohammad

Kelvin Suarez

Global Strategic Management 612

Summer2016

Table of Contents

Executive Summary        

Key Problems:        

Analysis and Evaluation:        

Table 1 : SWOT        

Table 2: Competitive Strength Analysis        

Table 3: Ethics Analysis        

Recommendation:        

Implementation Plan:        

Samsung’s take on Sustainability Management and Climate Change control        

Propositions for Implementation of strategies        

Implementation to further improve green management policy.        

Implementation of Sustainable Management Policy for Environment        

Works Cited        

Appendix        

Executive Summary

This case study highlighted the environmental initiatives taken up by Samsung.  Corporate environmental sustainability gained prominence in the business world since the concept of sustainability development grew in popularity during the late 1980s (Thompson, Peteraf, Gamble, & Strickland III, 2016). As the world began to take notice of corporations and the damage they cause to the environment and population, environmental rules and regulations began to take form.  In order to fulfill its environmental responsibility, Samsung Electronics introduced the ‘Eco-Management 2013’ initiative in 2009. After reporting out on its progress in its sustainability report of 2011, Samsung’s practices were criticized by some organizations, revealing that Samsung had violated labor rights, health rights of employee’s and was involved in environmental violations (Thompson, Peteraf, Gamble, & Strickland III, 2016).  By analyzing the corporations operations, we concluded that Samsung needs to take a stronger approach on managing ethics within the workplace to prevent anymore wrong doing. More specifically, the company needs to do a better job at reducing the contaminated emissions to the environment, being in compliance with the Child labor laws, finding a substitute or totally eliminating the cancer-causing solvents present in their products. The below analysis provides a detailed breakdown of our findings.

Key Problems:

From its inception as a small export business in Taegu, Korea, Samsung the world's pioneering electronic company specializes in digital appliances and media, semiconductors, memory, and system integration (Samsung Corporation, 2016).  Founded in the 1970‘s, today Samsung's innovative and top quality products and processes are world recognized.  Despite ranking number 7 of all electronic companies and revenues exceeding $220 billion (Thompson, Peteraf, Gamble, & Strickland III, 2016), Samsung faced scrutiny for not following guidelines relating to environmental norms in many of its production plants. In an attempt to step up their efforts to fulfill its corporate and environmental responsibility, Samsung Electronics introduced the ‘Eco-Management 2013’ initiative in 2009. “As per the incentive, Samsung took up various environmental programs including reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the development of best quality eco-friendly products (Thompson, Peteraf, Gamble, & Strickland III, 2016). While corporations around the world were adopting corporate environmental sustainability, researches and practitioners concluded that the best approach for achieving this included eco-friendly, triple bottom line, natural step, ecological footprint and carbon foot, eco-effectiveness and cradle- to-cradle designee.  According to Sushree Das of Amity Research Centers, through corporate sustainability, organizations were expected to generate long-term value for the customer and the employee’s by adopting ‘green’ strategies for environmental protection by considering the social, cultural, and economic aspects of the company’s operations (Thompson, Peteraf, Gamble, & Strickland III, 2016).  Taking their role as a global leader serious, Samsung made efforts to generate economic profits and at the same time tackle global issues such as social, economic and environmental issues.  Exhibits 1 through 5 summarize the key elements of Samsung’s sustainability management agenda.  

After reporting out on its progress in its sustainability report of 2011, Samsung’s practices were criticized by some organizations.  According to Das, reports revealed that Samsung had violated labor rights, health rights of employee’s and was involved in environmental violations (Thompson, Peteraf, Gamble, & Strickland III, 2016). More specifically Samsung was accused of the following:

• Violation of Child Labor Laws
• Environmental Pollution and illegally dumping of hazardous waste
• Usage of cancer-causing solvents in products
• 140 cases of cancer as well as 50 deaths due to unsafe working conditions
• Trade union repression, corruption, and tax flight

Despite efforts to reduce their carbon footprint, Samsung was found to have caused sever harm along the way.  Their reputation as an electronic leader and do-gooder was becoming tarnished.

Analysis and Evaluation:

In order to fully analyze and evaluate the current environmental issues and problems that Samsung is facing we need to look at the macro environment of the company. To analyze the macro environment of Samsung we look at the external and internal factors that are affecting Samsung. We will analyze external factors such as Political, Economic, Sociocultural, Technological, Environmental and Legislative (PESTEL Analysis).

• Due to Samsung being and international company and has manufacturing plants in different countries, such as its home country of South Korea, India, China , many African and Latin American countries it is greatly affected by the political situation in these countries. Most recent political threats to Samsung is in it home country with the threats of war from North Korea in the Korean Peninsula region.

• Samsung, a large company with sales all over the world, its revenue have been affected by the current ongoing global economic crisis that is affecting countries worldwide especially growing markets target markets.  

• Samsung being a Korean family owned business has faced many sociocultural issues with trying to adapt its global strategy to the different countries it sells its products in. Samsung has to been affected by sociocultural factors in growing markets where it has to adapt the preference and culture of these markets.

• Samsung faced many technological issues in its quest to be the leader in innovation and technology. Latest case is the lawsuit that Apple filed against Samsung accusing Samsung of imitating Apple’s technology. This lawsuit cost Samsung millions of dollars in fines.

• Samsung was affected by the growing awareness to environmental safety and pollution in many of the countries that Samsung has manufacturing plants in. Consumer awareness also grew to purchase environmental friendly electronics. This affected Samsung strategy and forced Samsung to implement new programs to become more environmental friendly.

• Samsung was faced with legislative action from the lawsuit it faced from Apple accusing Samsung of imitating its technology. Several legislative actions were taken against Samsung. These actions affected Samsung’s public image and reputation.

Looking at the internal factors that affected Samsung such as economical, technological, environmental, rival firms, new entrants.