Clarke Case Study

CSR 3/13/13 Going Green The company Clarke is a family company that has grown, since 1946, and is now the largest Mosquito Abatement firm out of all the districts in the US. They have been involved in the industry since 1927 when John Clark Sr. wrote the legislation that established the Mosquito Abatement District in the state of Illinois. The main goal was to produce a full, high-quality selection of products for the Mosquito Abatement Districts, taxpayer-funded municipal regions; individual administered, and state government entities.
Starting out with their mission to provide pesticide applications, they have grown to turnkey mosquito management systems, which include necessary personnel, chemical, and public education equipment. This case involves the company Clarke and their efforts to go green, and focus on environmental CSR, which seems to be what most companies are trying to do now-a-days. Consumers see going green as a company who is producing goods that are not harmful to the environment. It projects an overall better image for the company, which in return pleases environmentalists and helps to generate a better customer database a larger profit.
It also gives companies a way to be innovative with their products and differentiate themselves from all of their competitors in the market, and promotes a global initiative to provide a better overall living environment for the consumers. Their overall goal was to be able to shift their industry and bring in a new business model that would be able to change the industry in a positive way and give them an upper hand on their competition. They followed four core values, which are: 1. Extend the Reach: Responding to the growing interest in environmentalism. . Innovate: Helping their company grow with new products. 3. Sustainability 4. One Clark: Creating a culture of shared aspirations. Over the course of time, Clarke’s new developed product called “Natular”, was redeveloped and made environment friendly for multiple aquatic habitats such as lakes, ponds, retention ponds, and potable water containers. The main issue that the company faces is that they are having difficulty adding this product because it would potentially alter the overall consumers that they have.

And with the company trying to go green, this product does not really promote the “going green’ initiative, mainly because the fact of the matter is that this product is still a pesticide. It seems a bit contradicting to go green when you are producing pesticide products. Question: How does a company become a pesticide leader, demonstrating environmental responsibility in everything it does, in a way that is both profitable and credible to its customers, employees and other stakeholders?
The question stated above is what the main issue that was discussed in their recent meeting, and how they could go about solving this issue without sabotaging their business as a whole and losing their current customers. I believe that the bottom line is that they can go green but by what methods can you use to begin the process being that they are the industry that they are. The type of industry that they are in are already making products that have been know to harm the environment, not by choice to harm the environment, but that’s typically what they do when consumers use them for the things that they are used for.
In this case killing mosquitos. Which also in the long run can be very costly for the companies because there are specific regulations that they are to follow that are enforced by the Environmental Protection Agency, and they can also shut down any operations that Clarke has going on if the suspect that they are in fact not following the regulations that they are to abide by, and that could make it more difficult to create new products that could help them promote going green.
With their four goals that I mentioned earlier, they should really have no problem with trying to implement new CSR strategies that would eventually make them more environment friendly. They just have to be sure that they abide by regulations and continue working to develop their products to be more environment friendly until they achieve their overall goal.