Prioritization of CSR is essential to a business's success, even if that commitment to ethics compromises short-term profits. Companies who prioritize their workers and their ethical standards do better in the long run and are more attractive to millennials, who are the largest generation of consumers. The recent Herms scandal in which they were exposed for outsourcing labor to Chinese factories is a perfect example of a company compromising their ethics, values, and mission statement. Herms is a company that claimed to be European made and was founded on being a luxury brand that handmade all of their bags in exclusive factories, so the information coming to light that they actually make their bags for under $1000 while selling them for $20000+ showed an alarming deviation from what they claim to be, which falls into the ethical violation category defined in our textbook of "saying things that you know are not true". Even though cutting corners in this way allowed the company to be highly profitable, as soon as it was made clear that they were doing it, the profits and stock prices for Herms plummeted, showing that compromising ethics leads to less successful business in the long run. It's also unlikely that the Herms brand will recover from this scandal. Given the major sponsorship and collaboration losses with celebrities, as well as the well documented exposure of their unethical behavior on the internet, the information on their business practices is never going to be fully erased from either discovery or the minds of people who would support them. Their reputation as well as their stock value is tanked and likely to not recovery to the point they were before, if at all. CSR for a business is both a moral duty and a business strategy. With millennials and other consumers as invested as they are in social investing, a company in this day and age is unlikely to thrive without having a strong moral code. Consumers want to know what a business stands for, and most are intuitive enough to be able to recognize if a company or executive is being genuine in their statement of ethics -as shown by the losses the Pepsi brand incured after their Black Lives Matter commercial with Kendal Jenner-, so strong individual morals are a must in any industry as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBHoD4yE2C0

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