Corporate Environmental Responsibility of Food Processing Companies in Rivers State and Host Communities

Abstract

This study examined corporate environmental responsibility of food processing companies in Rivers State to host communities. The study was guided by four research objectives and questions. This study is a qualitative study based on phenomenology research design. The population of the study consists of 150 respondents, out of which 75 respondents were sampled through quota sampling technique and were used for the study. The researcher used interview schedule to carry out an in-depth interview of face-to-face interaction with the respondents. Findings reveal that companies attitudes toward corporate environmental responsibility is low, they adopts dialogue strategy to interface with host communities but community representatives are not usually inclusive body; companies provide inadequate compensation packages that are snot committed to poverty alleviation to community members; and that companies’ level of compliance to environmental responsibility component of corporate social responsibility is low due to their preference of bribing the community leader to avoid confrontation by community members. Based on the findings, the researcher recommended that companies should improve on their attitude toward corporate environmental responsibility because they are supposed to be  good neighbor to their host communities while community members should be accommodative in their agitations; dialogue as strategy for interface with host communities should be inclusive not selective and community members should be objective in their demands; compensations to host communities should be sustainable package that will improve on the socio-economic life of the people and that companies should consciously comply to agreement and community members also should respect agreement and not making excess demands that are not part of agreed status quo.