Much has been written about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the past 20 years. Businesses have adopted mission statements as a routine part of their public and employee rela-tions. Some business go further and offer a set of “core values” to flesh out their mission state-ments. While researching examples of mission statements and core value bulletpoints, I have found them to be vague and ridden with clichés. Businesses talk about “giving back to the com-munity”, “holding ourselves to high ethical standards”, “committed to our people”, and “encour-aging environmental awareness.” Some businesses comply with their statements of mission and sets of core values; others feel compelled to use these tools as mere public relations and market-ing schemes. There is a term for this, it is called “greenwashing”.In the past 5 years there has been a growing realization in business that global climate change will have an impact on the bottom line. One of the first industries to address global cli-mate change has been the insurance industry. Who stands to loose more than insurance compa-nies as the earth violently reacts to “business as usual” energy consumption and emissions?There now exist think tanks, non-profits, and professional organizations helping large corporations struggling in ways to reduce their carbon emissions. One example is Ceres, a coali-tion of investors, environmental organizations, and interest groups that help corporations to strengthen their environmental and social programs. To contract an organization like Ceres is both a time consuming and expensive endeavor, out of reach for most small business owners.As a result of my research, a question emerged: “What is the power of a small business to adapt to or mitigate global climate change?” Secondarily, “Can a climate change policy be ad-dressed through an existing corporate socially responsible framework? If so, how?”This paper will explore these and other questions by studying the CSR practices of The Works Bakery Café (The Works), a regional bagel and sandwich enterprise with five regional New England locations.The methodology I employed is based upon internal and external surveys of The Works employees and customers. Were customers willing to buy food items made from locally grown or processed ingredients? For a business, buying local shortens the supply chain, thus reducing carbon admissions. The answer to this question has been a resounding yes, as proven by the ex-periment of marketing a local ingredient sandwich at one of The Works’ locations.It is my intention to offer practical, creative, and low cost business applications for small businesses. Furthermore, I will make the case that addressing global climate change is a “social responsibility” of business. I will also offer advise on how a business can incorporate global cli-mate responsibility under their existing CSR framework.
