Seven Singapore organisations were honoured today for their efforts in corporate social responsbility (CSR) ranging from raising the level of carbon reporting to helping low-waged workers worst hit by the recession.
The winning companies were City Developments Ltd (CDL), NTUC FairPrice Cooperative Ltd, Singapore General Hospital, PaperlinX Singapore and ThaiExpress Concepts Pte Ltd.
Special mentions were noted for Tolaram Group Singapore and Siloso Beach Resort.
The firms were presented their honours by Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon, Minster of State, Ministry of Community Development, Youth & Sports, guest-of-honour on the second day of the two-day International Singapore Compact CSR Summit at Resorts World Sentosa.
CSR is a company’s commitment to responsible business practices to support sustainable development.
Commenting on the awards, Mr Seah Kian Peng, Vice-President of Singapore Compact for CSR told the conference that the response to the inaugural awards have been very strong.
“This shows that organisations take their CSR journey strongly and considers this a high priority item,” he said.
Unsurprisingly, the judges had a challenging task in picking the award winners.
“We feel that this award is a good way to motivate people to improve their CSR performance. We need leaders and innovators to lead the way in CSR, and to improve on what has been done.”
The seven companies were selected because they offered examples of compelling returns on investment of CSR activities either through product and service innovation.
They were examples of best practices in true CSR, aligning investment with the needs of their stakeholders, added Mr Seah.
This stands in contrast to the old practice of volunteering in charitable causes, and hosting occasional team building humanitarian activities.
The awards come just as CSR is picking up in Singapore. Over the past 12 months, there has been a significant 42 per cent increase in businesses joining Singapore Compact for CSR, a tripartite body charged with promoting CSR in the country.
The membership grew from 239 in September 2009 to 341 today.
Property developer CDL won the Green Champion Award, which recognises best practice in minimizing business externalities on the environment, and encourages others to benchmark against these practices.
Since 2007, CDL has actively participated in the Carbon Disclosure Project disclosing greenhouse gas emissions performance and climate change strategies. In 2008 the company voluntarily started reporting emissions data in the CDL Social Environmental Report in accordance with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).
NTUC Fairprice clinched the Community Developer Award, which recognised efforts to improve the well-being of the community. It had undertaken several major initiatives including programmes providing textbooks for needy students, provision of food vouchers top needy families, and a number of fund-raising initiatives for low-waged workers and workers worst hit by the recession.
ThaiExpress Concepts won the Caring Employers Award, which honours a firm who employed and showed care for disadvantaged Singaporeans including persons with special needs, persons recovering from mental illness, ex-offenders and youths at-risk.
PaperlinX Singapore won the Accountable Marketer Award which highlights the close relationship between the impact on society of a company’s product and services and the needs and values of its customers.
The Singapore General Hospital won the Best Employer Award, which honours firms that focus on areas such as equal opportunities, employee benefit, health & safety, flexible working hours, work-life balance, training, collaborative relationship and staff development for its employees.
Singapore Compact was set up by the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) and Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF) in 2005 and has been stepping up its efforts to encourage businesses to adopt CSR.
Eco-business.com’s coverage of the International Singapore Compact CSR summit is kindly brought to you by City Developments Limited (CDL).
