Zahra Gor­don

A new study by the Unit­ed Na­tions De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme (UNDP) shows that lo­cal com­pa­nies have not ful­ly in­te­grat­ed Cor­po­rate So­cial Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty (CSR) poli­cies in­to their op­er­a­tions. The re­port was launched yes­ter­day at the Arthur Lok Jack Grad­u­ate School of Busi­ness, Mt Hope. UNDP pro­gramme of­fi­cer, Dr Jens-Ul­rich Pop­pen, who pre­sent­ed find­ings from the re­port said since the last UNDP CSR map­ping re­port con­duct­ed in 2008, the lo­cal CSR land­scape had not changed sig­nif­i­cant­ly. UNDP de­fines CSR as pri­vate sec­tor ac­tiv­i­ties which "seek to utilise im­por­tant syn­er­gy ef­fects be­tween busi­ness acu­men, so­cial out­reach and civic en­gage­ment." Com­pa­nies with CSR poli­cies would adopt roles in na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, pover­ty re­duc­tion, en­vi­ron­men­tal­ism, and pro­mot­ing so­cial co­he­sion.

The re­port showed that in 2008 most com­pa­nies' CSR poli­cies fo­cused on phil­an­thropy and pub­lic re­la­tions and were not aligned with UN Mil­le­ni­um De­vel­op­ment Goals. It al­so point­ed to lim­it­ed col­lab­o­ra­tions with civ­il so­ci­ety and no gov­ern­ment in­volve­ment with CSR. Yet, the 2012 re­port ti­tled The View from the Board­room, showed that 80 per cent of all CEOs in­ter­viewed be­lieved that CSR was "crit­i­cal for the fu­ture suc­cess of their busi­ness." How­ev­er, on­ly 51.4 per cent of lo­cal CEOs said their com­pa­ny had a CSR strate­gic plan. The re­port al­so showed that very few CEOs-11.4 per cent-list­ed con­sumers as a main dri­ver to de­vel­op­ing a strate­gic CSR plan. Prof Miguel Car­il­lo, ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor at Arthur Lok Jack gave the open­ing re­marks at the launch and said or­gan­i­sa­tions need­ed to be both eco­nom­i­cal­ly and so­cial­ly in­tel­li­gent.

He said "char­ac­ter, en­er­gy, com­mit­ment and pas­sion" in ad­di­tion to eco­nom­ic savvy con­tributed to sus­tain­able busi­ness. "Cor­po­rate so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty could be one of the most pow­er­ful strate­gies to cre­at­ing a pur­pose­ful busi­ness." Us­ing Brazil as an ex­am­ple, Car­il­lo point­ed to the growth of the Gross Do­mes­tic Prod­uct (GDP) in re­cent years. He said al­though GDP has in­creased and there are more rich Brazil­ians, pover­ty rates are at their high­est. "A CSR pol­i­cy dri­ven by the pri­vate sec­tor and guid­ed by the pub­lic sec­tor can close the gap be­tween rich and poor," he said. For the study, 53 CEOs from en­er­gy, fi­nance and var­i­ous busi­ness sec­tors were in­ter­viewed. Oth­er speak­ers at the launch in­clud­ed Hen­ri-Fran­cis Morand, UNDP rep­re­sen­ta­tive and Eu­gene Tiah, pres­i­dent of Phoenix Park Gas Proces­sors.