CSR movement turning to young people [News]

By Michelle Yeo, The Business Times, 25 Aug 2011.

Young people are becoming the focus for promoting corporate social responsibility (CSR) as the time comes to build a new generation of CSR-oriented business leaders.

Singapore Compact for CSR, the national organisation responsible for pushing the CSR movement, is redirecting its focus to the nation’s youth. The highlight of this redirection is the launch of the inaugural Young CSR Leaders Award together with City Developments Limited (CDL) earlier this March.

Open to tertiary students between the ages of 17 and 30, this year’s competition saw a total of 27 teams working with 10 local small and medium enterprises (SMEs) from a range of different industries to help analyse and implement CSR programmes for these businesses. Read more

Corporate Social Responsibility drive to be ramped up; greater focus on youth [Press Releases]

Tertiary students work with SMEs in new Young CSR Leaders Award

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), which has moved on to the next leg with a 60 per cent increase in the number of organisations adopting this principle over the past two years, will now place a greater focus on youth to lay down a CSR foundation for the future.

Singapore Compact for CSR, the national organisation charged with promoting CSR, will place a strong emphasis on youth alongside with business organisations as it ramps up its awareness drive and training programmes to push the movement forward at a fast pace.

A highlight is the launch of a new initiative, the CDL-Singapore Compact Young CSR Leaders Award, which involves tertiary students working with Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to help analyse and implement CSR programmes and practices among these businesses. Singapore Compact’s existing CSR awards introduced in 2010 are for business organisations. Read more

International Singapore Compact CSR Summit 2011 [Events]

SMEs need to realise potential and benefits of strategic CSR [News]

By Michelle Yeo, The Business Times, 10 Aug 2011.

Despite the growing numbers of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) which are aware of the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR), experts believe that there is still room for further growth.

Krishna Udayasankar, lecturer from the Division of Marketing and International Business at the Nanyang Business School, maintains that though there is no doubt that CSR is becoming increasingly well-known to Singaporean SMEs, most SMEs still do not fully understand what constitutes CSR.

‘There remains a trend to think of CSR as mainly corporate philanthropy, but social responsibility is much more than that. In fact, it involves as much strategy as any business activity,’ he said. Read more

In-house CSR divisions being set up in firms [News]

By Nisha Ramchandani, The Business Times, 10 Aug 2011.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) may still be a fairly novel concept for many in the corporate sector, but some local companies are ahead of the curve in championing the cause and have set up their own in-house CSR divisions.

City Developments (CDL) – which first incorporated a CSR report into its annual report in 2004 before rolling out an independent annual sustainability report from 2008 – strives to measure its business against a ‘triple bottom line’: its financial, economic, and social performance.

One area which the group is seeking to improve going forward is in mitigating its impact on the environment. Read more

Human rights impact a big area in sustainability reporting [News]

By Annabelle Yip, The Business Times, 22 Jul 2011.

SUSTAINABILITY and corporate social responsibility (CSR) are issues that have come to the fore with the Singapore Exchange’s (SGX) move to issue a guide to sustainability reporting for listed companies, and the United Nations Human Rights Council’s (UNHRC) endorsement of the guiding principles for business and human rights.

Sustainability reporting in Singapore remains in its early stages and its development lags behind that in other Asean countries, according to CSR Asia in a statement in February.

When releasing the policy statement and the guide to sustainability reporting in June, SGX noted that the way businesses operate can have long-term effects on the environment and society, and that global investors and other important stakeholders have called for companies to espouse sustainability and report on such initiatives. Read more

Insights from a Green Champion’s CSR Journey

With concerted government and private-sector efforts towards environmental sustainability in Singapore and across the globe, the green sector has grown considerably in prominence and company practices. With this comes various ways of measuring, understanding, and of course recognising efforts by companies which invest considerable effort into this aspect of corporate social responsibility, or CSR.

One example of this is the Singapore Compact CSR Awards, launched in 2010 in various categories for different aspects of CSR. To understand and learn from a local company’s CSR journey, Green Business Times spoke to Ms Esther An, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), City Developments Limited (CDL), winner of the inaugural Singapore Compact CSR Green Champion Award. Read more

CSR mostly driven by cost management now [News]

Cost management is now the biggest driving force behind Singapore companies’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) activity, according to the 2011 Grant Thornton International Business Report.

The study surveyed 2,700 companies globally in the first quarter of this year, to uncover ways in which businesses perceive and engage in CSR activity.

Fifty Singapore companies were polled, with target respondents being chief executive officers, managing directors and other senior executives.

Findings revealed that the top three drivers for CSR activity in Singapore were cost management at 76 per cent, recruitment/retention of staff at 73 per cent, and public attitudes/brand building at 62 per cent. Read more

Singapore firms lag in green reporting [News]

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) may not be a foreign concept to Singapore companies but it appears that articulating CSR policies and activities still isn’t common practice here.

Singapore firms are seen lagging their regional peers in sustainability reporting. But accounting professionals and CSR lobbyists believe that this gap should narrow as efforts to spur ‘green reporting’ gather speed.

Thomas Thomas, executive director of Singapore Compact, a multi-stakeholder platform that promotes CSR, notes that with more stock exchanges globally requiring listed companies to issue sustainability reports, there has been an increase in sustainability reporting among companies here, particularly those with overseas businesses. Read more

CSR 2.0 – An Active Approach Towards Creating Shared Value

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is the new business buzzword in corporate strategy with the advent of ISO 26000 – a voluntary standard concerning compliance to social norms and sustainable development. However, the current CSR paradigm is usually focused towards attaining compliance and branding, and not focused on creating ‘shared value’ with communities. There is a need for an evolution towards CSR 2.0 with an active approach towards creating shared value.

CSR initiatives such as the ISO 26000 and Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) are compelling companies to have regular sustainability reporting which covers social and environmental aspects. Many countries including India have regulations concerning the compulsory reporting of CSR and sustainability efforts. However, the current CSR paradigm is usually towards attaining compliance and not really to create shared value with communities. In addition, some companies treat CSR as only a means of branding with the ad-hoc social or green campaigns, or as a means of improving the potential market space for their products and services. It is common to see the CSR function under the corporate communications or marketing team, and not fully integrated into the company’s strategies and policies. Read more

« Previous Page — Next Page »