Communications in Business - Social Performance of BMW AG Essay

Communications in Business - Social Performance of BMW AG - Essay Example It is in this context that the company has been recorded to be the winner of Sustainability Index Leader for consecutive 7 years (Jackson 2011). However, there are several cases which reveal facts against the operations of the company. With this concern the paper shall intend to critically analyse the performances of BMW AG in the international platform and analyse its efficiency in performing its corporate social responsibility. In this regard, both the positive and negative issues will be discussed with briefings based on the social impacts and its effect on the company’s stakeholders. The Case against BMW AG One of the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) goals which have been determined by BMW AG to enhance its performance and sustainable growth is focused on the minimisation of the impact automobile creates on the environment. In this regard, the company enforces few technological transformations which are expected to reduce emissions and at the same time minimise the ne ed of natural resources (BMW Group 2009). With this concern the company implies the concept of environmental management system in its operations. Adhering to its objective and the environment management approach the company concentrates on recycling the resources, such as unused cars, engines and other required materials to produce new cars. It also focuses on the utilisation of natural fibres in the door panels and sound-proofing (BMW Group 2009). However, the utilisation of natural fibres in the automotive designing can cause few disadvantages. For instance, due to the employment of natural fibres in the automobile designing, providing a perfect shape to the body of the products becomes tough. This in turn gives rise to the operational cost of the organisation. Moreover, after the recycling of natural fibres it becomes weak. Natural fibres also absorb moisture from the climate and causes swelling which in turn hamper the longevity of the automobile. Other disadvantages of using na tural fibres are lower durability and quite weaker fire resistance (Rijswijk, Brouwer and Beukers 2001). Therefore, it can be stated that utilisation of natural fibres reduces the negative impact on environment which could have taken place directly due to the usage of other fibres. But on the contrary it causes deficiency in the performance of the vehicles hampering the interests of the consumers. It lacks in safety precautions, durability and reliability which can directly affect the company’s sustainable growth creating a negative impact on the society and the stakeholders on the whole. In its sustainability operations, the company is also recorded to implement hybrid technology in its production system with PSA Peugeot Citroen as a joint venture. The objective of the company in this regard is to minimise the fuel consumption and emissions with the purpose to reduce the amount of negative impact that widely used automobile technologies have on the environment (PR Newswire 2 011). But the hybridisation of automobile technologies also has their inevitable disadvantages. To be mentioned in this context, hybrid technology can certainly be quite costly with limited affordability in the current market situation. According to evidences from automobile engineers it is also revealed