Evaluation of corporate social responsibility reports

Serbia EPS sustainability report is an annual report regarding the social responsibility of Serbia's electric power industry. The report is released in attempts to make this industry to become a competitive player in the regional market to inspire and drive others industries in the country. Generally, strong and successful companies in this industry that operate based on social principles and market rules contribute to the community's prosperity. The main goal of the corporate social responsibility report is to examine the company's measures toward achieving sustainability. The sustainability efforts of Serbia EPS Company are geared towards ensuring the firm is a major player in the country's electric power industry in order to stimulate and drive the growth of other industries as well as contributing to the enhancement of the entire community. This report provides significant insights that contribute to the development of various recommendations for improvement in relation to corporate social responsibility.

Assessment of the Sustainability Report:

The development of the sustainability report is based on the premise that the prosperity and growth of Serbia EPS Company is also the prosperity of the entire country. The report contains different segments that are related to the electric power industry of Serbia including cleaner water, air and land, safeguarding cultural and scientific heritage, and the right to decent life. While it focuses on sustainability of the Electric Power Industry of Serbia, the report incorporates several aspects in the overall energy industry in the country.

In addition to recognizing the significance of the company's development in contributing to national growth, the report also highlights the important aspects with which a firm can result in community growth and development. This is also demonstrated through critical consideration of the significance and contribution of various stakeholders towards achieving national growth and prosperity. Generally, this report includes some of the major components of a corporate social responsibility report such as the stakeholder environment, competitor environment, and technological environment.

Insights from the Corporate Social Responsibility Report:

As previously mentioned, Serbia EPS corporate social responsibility report shows the various initiatives undertaken by the company to promote organizational growth and national development. In essence, it shows how the Electrical Power Industry of Serbia has used its knowledge and energy in achieving this goal. The demonstration of these initiatives is based on explanation of the different elements of corporate social responsibility report in light of the organization's goals and community development.

The first aspect of a CSR report demonstrated in this document is the management of public issues and stakeholder relationships. While public issue refers to a concern or problem of mutual interest to an organization and its stakeholders, stakeholder relationships entail performance expectations and an organization's role in meeting these expectations. The Serbia EPS sustainability report shows these major components where the public issue is the need to achieve a high degree of energy efficiency while maintaining improved environmental protection. This is an issue of concern to the organization and the public because of the prevalence of negative health effects associated with increased industrialization and use of non-renewable sources of energy. The company seeks to employ better strategies towards ensuring the country is energy efficient while lessening the use of energy sources that contribute to global warming and its associated negative impacts on people and the ecosystem. In this case, the company recognizes the need to use coal rationally because of its limited quantities and considerable effect on the environment ("Report on Corporate Social Responsibility," p.4).

In relation to stakeholder relationships, Electric Power Industry of Serbia has given more attention and focus on the community because its strength and success is partly dependent on building good partnership relationships with these stakeholders. Actually, the company's initiatives towards energy efficiency are fueled by the various requests it receives from stakeholders to solve various problems and enhance the community. Serbia EPS is constantly developing ways to reach improve the community since the needs are many while the existing means are relatively insufficient. Apart from the community, the company also has an employee care program that revolves around educating these workers and promoting their career development ("Report on Corporate Social Responsibility," p.14).

The second aspect of corporate social responsibility included in the sustainability report is sustainable development. Sustainable development is a crucial element in such report because the survival of human society over time requires sustainable means of operation in a manner that does not deplete or destroy natural resources for the coming generation. Some of the major goals of sustainable development include environmental protection through economic development. In the report, the company recognizes that it operates within a finite natural environment that provides numerous opportunities but also confers constraints.

Since it functions in the energy industry, one of the major goals of sustainable development initiatives by this company is environmental protection. EPS tries to ensure that it meets the needs of the present community and generation through ways that do not hurt the capability of future generations to meet their own needs. The organization's sustainable development initiatives focus on achieving a high degree of energy efficiency and improved environmental protection. Therefore, EPS conducts rehabilitations, overhauls, and upgrade of generation capacities to achieve these goals. These initiatives are accompanied with rational use of coal as an energy resource for the country. EPS is the leader in Serbia energy industry because of heavy investments in coal quality control, energy efficiency, and implementation of projects that are geared towards environmental protection. The use of state-of-the-art technologies in current power plants to accomplish these objectives demonstrates that EPS is a socially responsible company or organization.

The third element of corporate social responsibility included in this sustainability report is the strategy and society aspect, which is primarily described as the link between a company's competitive advantage and the society. The report clearly demonstrates the point of intersection between EPS and the society, the major social issues to address, and initiatives that contribute to organizational and societal benefits. The link between this firm and the society is the need to achieve energy efficiency and improved protection of the environment while the major social issue to address is meeting the energy needs of the population but lessening the negative impacts brought by this process. The company's initiatives to achieve this goal include using better means to generate energy and providing considerable financial support to educational, health, scientific, and cultural resources as well as investing in several humanitarian campaigns.

Suggestions for Improvement:

While EPS sustainability report provides several insights regarding the company's initiatives towards being a socially responsible organization, it does not cover all aspects of corporate social responsibility report. One of the major areas with minimal information on how the company is socially responsible is related to the organization and its stakeholders i.e. employees. Employees are one of the most important groups affecting or affected by the organization's policies, decisions, and operation. Therefore, the organization needs to develop strong relationships with these stakeholders because they add value to the company in relation to the accomplishment of established business objectives.

While the company has heavily invested in other stakeholders such as the community or customers, it seems to have minimal investments on employees who add value and contribute to realization or organizational goals. The report only recognizes the need for planned and organized development of employees' professional competencies but does provide details of established programs or processes that help in achieving this goal. Even though the significance and value of employees are recognized in the report, the company does not seem to have ongoing programs for training and career development of this stakeholder. Therefore, the link between the organization and its most important stakeholder i.e. employees is very weak, which necessitates improvement in order to enhance the organization's effectiveness. This implies that there is a huge need for the firm to focus on its internal stakeholders.