40% of Companies in Singapore are Aware of Corporate Social Responsibility

The National CSR Survey was released yesterday by the Singapore Compact for CSR, together with the Ministry of Trade and Industry and the Singapore Business Federation. The survey was conducted with about 500 companies, both large companies and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and measured their awareness of corporate social responsibility (CSR), including what it meant to the company, the importance of CSR, and the challenges they faced.

The survey showed that 40% of the companies are aware of CSR and the awareness level among the large companies is twice that of the SMEs. Among the companies that are aware of CSR, about two-thirds have implemented CSR in areas such as sustainable development, fair employment and corporate philanthropy. Their main motivation was due to their corporate culture and to increase branding. The other one-third who did not implement CSR felt that it was not relevant to their business or because they lacked the funding and training resources.

The release of the survey was accompanied by panel discussions, which reflected on the survey findings and discussed action plans to boost the CSR movement in Singapore. We share the following insights from the discussion that we think are fundamental and important:

• CSR is not what you do with your profits but how you make your profits.
• CSR is an integral part of the business and should be internalised in every aspect of the business, with everyone from top down to bottom up understanding CSR and being involved.
• A CSR champion is required in the company and the champion can be from any department. The person need not be from the HR department or from a specialised CSR department.
• A collaborative CSR effort is needed in Singapore for the various organisations and government agencies in Singapore to come together, understand each other, work together and share resources and experiences together.
• Funding for CSR training and capacity building would be useful for companies, especially for SMEs, to embrace CSR.

Source: The Straits Times via Wildsingapore.

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