Personal Social Responsibility & Corporate Social Responsiblity

PSR – “Personal social responsibility”

"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost."
John Quincy Adams 6th US President.

Sustainability is currently the big construction industry buzz word, encompassing the concept of reducing the environmental impact of creating and maintaining the built environment, it taps into a wealth of reasoning drawn from scientific research and combines this with a moral obligation that we are damaging the very fabric of the planet (or local environment) that sustains us. Sustainability goes hand in hand with Corporate Social Responsibility where the actions of business and commerce seek to take some responsibility in mitigating this potentially self created damaging process.

CSR is rooted in socio- economic reasoning, however it can be taken further by introducing the concept of Personal Social Responsibility “PSR” by which individuals take up the role of helping to determine commercial and social behaviour in society through their buying choices, lifestyle choices and (inevitably) must include political allegiances.

Critical to PSR is the immediate and experienced consequences of environmental damage. Making the connection between global warming, and climate change and the way we live our lives is problematic. To feel that we are making a difference needs tangible outcomes as the time scales and global aspects mean that the benefits of changes made now may not be experienced in our lifetime. To illustrate this, imagine planting a tree, it is always said the you plant a tree for your children and grand children, they will experience its full majesty many years after you have gone - picture many of the stately homes and gardens where such foresight has created magnificent and treasured environments we can all enjoy today and are committed to sustaining into the future.

Such foresight is to be highly commended but modern society is not adept at such long term reasoning. To make a real difference and establish sustainable behaviour in its rightful place, we need to concentrate on reducing waste, in energy use, water use, waste from packaging and food and we must lose our obsession with disposable culture.

For real change to take place immediate and experienced benefits must be felt, remember the phrase “waste not want not”. This is a necessity of life in many parts of the world but the developed world is insulated from its consequences.

Burdens Environmental is committed to providing real and demonstrable products and services to enable individual changes in behaviour and to replace profligate technologies with sustainable technologies Burdens Environmental will encourage individual PSR as a driver to reduce waste in all its forms. We are dedicated to enabling a multitude of small changes to create a larger sustainable legacy into the future; as John Quincy Adams points out your vote – in this case actions- really do matter, as with all diverse and complex societies it is only by changing individual responsibility that you change collective responsibility – we must all therefore be committed to playing our part, by doing so the benefits of sustainable living will be promoted from wishful thinking and well intentioned words into reality.

Will Kirkman (Business Development Director) Burdens Ltd