Corporate Social Responsibility Stakeholder Engagement

It is important that the different stakeholders in any corporate social responsibility program will jointly and severally take cognizance of the social and environmental consequences of their actions on the social fabric of the affected community. They should be prepared to refuse to participate in activities that willfully or recklessly impart negatively on or to the environment in which they operate.

The role-players should recognize that science and engineering could, if applied correctly be used to improve the living condition but also the environment at large and should devote their knowledge and skills for this purpose.

When a corporation is instituting programs to prevent large scale unemployment in an area where they operate, implement anti discrimination policies or reduce pollution from their operations they are undoubtedly doing good but are also contributing to the community by, at least partially, avoiding these malicious issues in the community . In practice it is true that, very often the positive actions taken by a corporation and the associated iniquities cannot be separated as they are two sides of the same moral coin.

In order to deal with this mammoth task it is important to establish a formal structure to deal with the relevant technical and policy issues.

Company Structured Teams

In order to implement a suitable and sufficient corporate social responsibility program most organizations form a number of working groups that report in to a steering committee who in turn is accountable to the Board of Directors. These working groups can be quite divergent in terms of activities and focus, however most successful corporate social responsibility programs include at least four working groups as follows:

Ethics Working Group

The role of the ethics working group is to assess the company's existing corporate governance profile and set targets to fulfill statutory and inspirational goals. This might include planning for consideration of CSR issues in critical corporate matters.

Health, Safety & Environment Working Group

The environmental and safety working group will primarily be responsible for determining the existing level of the company's auditing and reporting standards in respect of in environmental and safety. This standard will then be compared with legal requirements and industry standards for both internal and external impacts and aspects.

Community Working Group

The role of the community working group will initially be to develop the company's community commitment policy. In addition the working group will normally develop and instigate a comprehensive community consultation procedure. Once the policy and community consultation procedure is fully developed through the working group will drive the community relations initiatives in line with the policy requirements. The working group is normally also responsible to ensure that structured reporting of CSR activities are prepared to all official agencies with an interest in the work being done by the company.

Employees Working Group

The establishment of a working group that is responsible for formal internal CSR communications, education and training initiatives as well as recommendations and follows through on employee recognition and rewards schemes is critical to the success of a CSR program.

Conclusion

Establishing a Corporate Social Responsibility Executive Committee is an important part of ensuring the success of any corporate social responsibility program. It is the responsibility of this committee to act as the driving force with respect to policies and strategies that affect the Company's role and its reputation as a socially responsible organization.

This committee however cannot and should not be tasked with the technical roles that are necessary for a corporate social responsibility program to be successful. These roles are best taken care of by specialists that should participate in the CSR program by their appointment in working groups that focus on the task at hand.

The Corporate Social Responsibility Executive Committee normally acts as the link between the working groups and the Board of Directors. The committee should also act in an advisory capacity to the Board of Directors in respect of Corporate Social Responsibility issues.