Assignment task: Multinational corporations flood the airwaves advertising the ways in which they do good for the society: they give to charities, they participate in fair trade, they reduce their carbon footprint, they advocate for racial justice, etc. In the conversation I asked you to watch, Professor Banerjee made the claim that these are not just exercises in public relations but more insidiously, are frequently smokescreens to divert attention from their actual behavior such as profiting from activities like environmental destruction, unsafe working conditions, extreme worker exploitation, bribery, money laundering and other financial fraud, the use of violence to suppress labor organizing, etc.
For instance, Shell, the oil company that is part of the UN Global Compact has a web page that details its commitment to "protecting the environment, reducing waste and making a positive contribution to biodiversity." Yet, as this report shows, it has spent a lot of money to suppress information about the links between fossil fuels and human health and has actively tried to undermine the science that shows how the extraction and burning of fossil fuels has had enormous consequences for the health and well-being of the planet and its inhabitants. Further, along with other oil companies, it has aggressively lobbied against a variety of clean air regulations, often successfully undermining the efforts of the government to regulate them.
Use a real world example to explain how you think of CSR (if you wish you can use the Shell story above or you can come up with your own example). You can focus on the good aspects or the bad ones or on both. And keep in mind that you do not have to agree with me or with anyone else as long as you can substantiate your own position with evidence.