What it means to be a socially responsible business

What is social responsibility?

Social responsibility is about how a business chooses to show up in the world. It means operating ethically and taking responsibility for the impact you have on people, communities and the environment, beyond focusing on your own commercial interests. This includes understanding and addressing your company’s footprint, whether that is carbon emissions, supply chain practices, workplace culture or its role in the wider community.

In practice, this might include paying a living wage, implementing inclusive workplace policies, paying suppliers promptly and embedding giving into your business so you can contribute positively to causes and communities that matter.

Why social responsibility matters

When businesses put purpose at the heart of their decisions, they can create value that goes beyond profit alone. Social responsibility helps companies act more ethically and sustainably by embedding responsible decision-making into everyday operations, from how they manage their environmental footprint to how they treat employees, suppliers and communities. It also has a positive impact on financial goals and long-term resilience, as consumers increasingly favour brands that demonstrate a genuine commitment to social responsibility, helping to strengthen loyalty, trust and overall profitability.

Placing corporate giving at the centre of this approach further enables your organisation to play an active role in supporting communities and addressing social challenges.

The benefits of social responsibility in business

When businesses lead with purpose, the impact is felt across the organisation:

• Stronger trust and reputation: People expect companies to play a positive role in their communities. Being open about your responsible practices — including long‑term giving — helps build credibility with employees, partners and customers.
• Higher employee engagement: When a business actively tackles social issues and fosters a culture of generosity, people feel more motivated and connected to each other.
• Greater resilience: Ethical decision‑making helps companies spot and manage social and environmental risks early, strengthening long‑term sustainability.
• Stronger customer loyalty: Today’s consumers, particularly younger audiences, value brands that take meaningful social action. This deepens connection and advocacy, even during uncertain times.

Types of socially responsible business practices

Social responsibility works best when businesses take a considered, joined-up approach to how they contribute to society. These four areas can help guide your efforts:

• Environmental
  Reducing negative environmental impact through actions such as improving energy efficiency, adopting circular economy principles, setting measurable carbon reduction targets and supporting environmental charity initiatives to extend your impact.
• Ethical labour
  Creating fair and inclusive workplaces by promoting diversity and inclusion, maintaining transparent supply chains, and ensuring safe working conditions and fair wages.
• Economic
  Supporting local economies by paying suppliers promptly, investing in community development projects and promoting ethical procurement and fair trade.
• Philanthropy
  Giving is a long‑term commitment to a more sustainable and inclusive future. This includes actively supporting communities through regular donations, charity partnerships and place-based initiatives that respond to real need over time.

The role giving plays in being a socially responsible business

Giving helps turn good intentions into action, funding frontline efforts and supporting urgent and long-term community needs. Our Corporate Giving Report 2025 shows that while non-cash contributions play an important role, cash giving remains essential for charities to run and grow their services, yet it fell by an estimated £300m in 2024. Embedding giving into responsible business strategies helps provide charities with reliable income and the confidence to plan, invest and build their capacity over time.

This approach can deliver lasting impact. For example, Landsec, a FTSE 100 real estate company, developed a giving programme to tackle barriers faced by young people from underrepresented socioeconomic backgrounds and improve the diversity of real estate talent.

By committing £20 million over ten years to social mobility initiatives, Landsec created the scale and certainty needed to support sustained education, skills development, and access to industry pathways. This long-term approach enables charities and partners to plan ahead and deepen their impact in a more targeted, lasting way.

Examples of effective corporate giving in practice

Corporate giving is most effective when it is intentional, consistent and clearly linked to what your business is trying to achieve, rather than treated as ad hoc.

Asking the right questions can help shape an approach that works for your organisation and the communities you want to support. Here are two examples of how businesses have answered some important questions in practice:

Which approaches to giving would help us deliver our social impact goals?
AstraZeneca looked to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal of reducing early death from non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and decided they wanted to improve the health and life chances of people aged 10–24 in vulnerable communities worldwide. To achieve this, they used grantmaking to establish the Young Health Programme (YHP).

By setting up a Company Account, AstraZeneca was able to securely and transparently manage its charitable funds until they were ready to make grants. This enabled them to run a structured, global grantmaking programme with strong due diligence, and make safe tax-efficient donations to trusted charity partners across 40+ countries.

The YHP has since empowered over 20 million young people with life‑saving knowledge about NCD risk behaviours, trained more than 266,000 health workers, 680,000 young people to deliver health interventions, and mobilised 20,000 volunteers to support communities.

How can we increase our employees' impact?
Intact Insurance, a global insurance firm, explored how matched giving could help their employees make a greater difference through their personal giving.

They introduced a Give As You Earn (GAYE) payroll giving scheme, allowing employees to donate to charity directly from their salary before tax. By matching contributions pound for pound, up to £50 per month, the company added over £97,000 to employee donations in 2024 alone, raising a total of more than £234,000 for charity.

An employee explained how giving through the scheme made a personal impact: “Each year, we experience first-hand the difference our donation makes to the community, and it is a great feeling.”