There were major qualitative improvements among the shortlisted companies vying for the StarBiz-ICR Malaysia Corporate Responsibility (CR) Awards 2010.
Securities Commission chairman Tan Sri Zarinah Anwar, who is the chief judge for the awards, said the leading companies had improved and were setting higher standards of CR performance. But a majority of companies, particularly those with market cap below RM1bil, are still lagging behind and have not implemented structured CR programmes with clear policies and targets, according to Zarinah.
As in previous years, she said there was a clear distinction between companies in the two market segments with a much higher proportion of companies in the segment above RM1bil market cap achieving a score of above 50%.
This, she added, might also help explain why most of the sustainability reports were produced by companies above RM1bil market cap.
“However, it is heartening to note that in the initial shortlist of 52 (companies), 27 were companies below RM1bil market cap. This clearly demonstrates that a smaller market cap is not an impediment to good CR practices.
“Subscription to high ethical standards and a commitment to ensuring a moral underpinning to business activities and the ideal of the greater good is what makes the difference,” Zarinah said in her speech at the StarBiz-ICR Malaysia Corporate Responsibility Awards 2010.
She said there was further improvement this year in the screening and scoring methodology by employing a more robust database survey platform that was more focused, user-friendly and which allowed for a more efficient and in-depth review and analysis of responses.
The enhanced methodology rewarded companies with structured CR policies that set targets and measured performance against those targets, she added.
Zarinah said the screening of these online submissions was based on both quantitative and qualitative scoring, as well as evaluating the quality and relevance of the responses.
Companies were then shortlisted based on a qualitative review of the responses, available documentation and information gathered from telephone interviews, she said. In identifying leading companies, she said emphasis was placed on completeness, quality and material with extra points given for third party assurance, audit processes and external stakeholder engagement.
To be shortlisted, companies had to achieve a minimum performance across all four CR categories-Marketplace, Workplace, Environment and Community.
In the marketplace category, she said most companies had satisfactory formal corporate governance structures in line with Bursa Malaysia’s corporate governance framework.
Equally, Zarinah added that most companies also had in place ethics policies although there was little evidence of monitoring and enforcement of these policies.
In the workplace category, she said training and development remained a focus area, adding that most companies had structured an extensive training programmes for employees but there was much room for improvement in respect of other basic workplace policies.
The environment category saw a significant discrepancy in the performance of companies, she said. 51% of those above RM1bil in market cap scored above 50% while only 28% of companies below RM1bil did so. There were no significant improvements recorded in the number of companies setting environmental targets, she noted.
Besides Zarinah, the other judges at the event were Datuk Kok Wee Kiat, chairman of the Environmental Quality Council Malaysia; Datuk Yusli Yusoff, CEO of Bursa Malaysia Bhd and Datuk Peter Wentworth, former chairman of the British Malaysian Chamber of Commerce.
The event was graced by His Royal Highness Raja Dr Nazrin Shah ibni Sultan Azlan Muhibbuddin Shah, the Crown Prince of Perak and patron of the StarBiz-ICR Malaysia CR Awards. Over 150 corporate leaders and CR champions also attended the awards ceremony.
The StarBiz-ICR Malaysia Corporate Responsibility Awards 2010 is organised by The Star and the Institute of Corporate Responsibility (ICR) Malaysia, together with their working partners, PwC and the Securities Industry Development Corp (SIDC). The awards were co-sponsored by Canon Marketing (M) Sdn. Bhd.
