As part of the final master’s project “An analysis of the current state of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the passenger transport sector”, six tourist transport companies were studied — one of the sectors generating the greatest volume of polluting emissions. They are ALSA, AvanzaBus, Pullmantur, Norwegian Cruise Line, Iberia and Air Europa. The study examines their commitment to designing and implementing CSR policies, through the information given on their websites and in their sustainability reports.
Analysing CSR in passenger transport
The first conclusion the analysis produced was how similar these companies’ conceptions of CSR are. All of them stressed that it cuts across the organisation, affecting its various areas, and that it is bound up with the basic activity, with the organisation’s core business. Among the common characteristics were the voluntary nature of the actions taken and the impact of those actions on society.
For these organisations, implementing a plan that embeds CSR was found to offer several advantages. The principal one is the opportunity to mitigate the negative impacts of business activity, particularly those relating to environmental sustainability, so as to reduce overall pollution levels.
These companies also demonstrate social measures relating to labour rights and to users’ well-being — the employment of people from vulnerable groups, for instance, and comfort of use on their services.
The project also gathered information on how users perceive companies’ commitment to CSR. Closed-question surveys were used, in which consumers identified CSR as of considerable value in improving environmental care and social well-being.
Several of these companies present collaborations with organisations as though they were good practice arising from the company’s principal activity, when they are no more than collaborations or philanthropic gestures unconnected to their strategic social responsibility.
Some users cannot distinguish between social or environmental improvements connected to a company’s CSR and activity that does not follow that strategic line. Consumers were found to believe that companies are not genuinely concerned about social and environmental matters.
The tourist transport sector
Transport is a particularly significant sector for what it contributes to national wealth and for the number of people it employs. For tourism specifically, Spain’s transport networks make it possible to reach a range of places by the various means of travel on offer.
Negative impacts have also been noted, however, such as mass tourism and the growth in transport use that comes with it.
Sustainability reports and web accessibility
Analysing the six companies’ CSR reports shows that, in general, they centre on environmental matters. Not all the actions presented in them are tied to the company’s business strategy.
These documents are published on their websites. All of them, with the exception of Iberia’s, were found not to have been produced to accessibility standards. This aspect of digital inclusion was flagged as an important factor by the users surveyed. Passenger transport is one of the sectors producing the most polluting emissions, and its CSR practice is therefore closely tied to the environment.
In most of the air, sea and land transport companies analysed, only practice in that field is set out — though each presents it differently — with social matters coming second.
The sustainability tabs on corporate websites are there to communicate clearly and concisely what the organisation is committed to where sustainability is concerned. In some cases they specifically include the CSR policy and, where one exists, the sustainability report. In some companies, though, this section of the site is used to set out the collaborations they maintain — with various associations, for instance, that are not tied to the company’s own strategy.
It is worth noting that the company making best use of what its corporate website can offer is Iberia, specifically on the Iberia Group site, where one can find its CSR policy in detail, the SDGs it treats as priorities and, finally, its sustainability reports for recent years, in English and in Spanish and in various formats. Those reports also describe how the company engages with its stakeholders, along with a materiality analysis.
On web accessibility, transport companies were found not to be investing in it. What the sector contributes theoretically to CSR on environmental matters is considerable, but the information provided on the social dimension is smaller by comparison.
Strategic social responsibility
As regards the strategic social responsibility of these CSR activities, little connection with the company’s overall strategy is evident. That is to say, companies attempt to justify their CSR strategy with good practice and activities not tied to their principal business.
In summary, social responsibility in transport is taking on ever greater importance, and it matters to users of these services too. Companies should bear in mind that not everything done beyond what the law requires is tied to a socially responsible strategy, and they should therefore ensure their practice is aligned with the company’s principal strategy.
By Noralí Ailén Contreras Torres and Judith de las Heras Serrano, students on the Master’s in Responsible Marketing and International Trade Management at CMI.
Final project supervised by Susana Yáñez Gutiérrez, PhD and specialist in the strategic management of sustainability.
