Industry captains and business managers in Asia Pacific place sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) high on their firm’s priority list. But this is not necessarily translating into action, with many citing cost as the biggest obstacle, a new survey has found.
Almost nine out of 10 - or 89 per cent - of business professionals surveyed said it was important for their organisation to embrace CSR. However, less than half at 42 per cent said their company had an environmental management system in place and only about 45 per cent of those surveyed said their organisation had a dedicated “green team” to integrate CSR throughout the firm’s operations.
Environmental management systems (EMS) help firms to measure and reduce their environmental impacts. Encouragingly, nearly a quarter said such a system was “in the works”.
Director of regional consulting firm CSR Asia Holly Lindsay told Eco-Business in an interview that, throughout Asia, most companies that operate any buildings other than offices are required to have some form of environmental management system in place.
Asia’s companies are generally good at adhering to EMS requirements, so those respondents who claim their firms have no system in place are probably office-based or unaware of this part their company’s operations, she said.
When asked to identify the main obstacle to putting CSR plans into action, about half or 45 per cent of respondents ranked cost as the top challenge, followed by lack of employee involvement (24.1 per cent) and lack of leadership (22.3 per cent).
Ms Lindsay said that her 20 years of experience has shown that the biggest barrier was lack of leadership and follow through, and that the cost barrier was a misconception.
The benefits of adopting CSR strategies are clear, and once a company has “an inkling of leadership” prioritising CSR, the strategies can be quite inexpensive to do, she noted.
For example, some low cost CSR strategies can help companies retain staff and reduce the funding and time needed for training, she noted.
The findings emerged from a recent survey conducted by Eco-Business, a Singapore-based online media platform for Asia Pacific’s sustainable business community. Eco-Business surveyed almost 600 professionals located mainly in Asia Pacific to seek insights into corporate Asia’s attitudes towards CSR.
The survey explored the level of involvement of top managers in developing CSR strategies, the perceived relevance of sustainability to a company’s operations, progress on implementing CSR policies and barriers to such progress.
Eco-Business managing director James Hosking said such research would provide insight into Asia Pacific’s readiness to adopt such practices.
“The survey has unearthed some interesting results. It’s heartening to note that sustainability and CSR are emerging at the top of the agenda for an increasing number of business leaders in Asia,” he noted.
Of the 582 responses, 35 per cent of responses were from Singapore, 12 per cent were from Australia and 8 per cent were from the United States. Most of the remaining responses came from New Zealand, China, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Indonesia.
Almost 9 in 10 respondents, or 84 per cent, said that their company’s top management was involved in shaping sustainability strategies. Those who said their companies’ senior managers were involved were more likely to come from countries where CSR policies are relatively new and developing rapidly (Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore), while respondents from the United States, Australia and New Zealand noted slightly less involvement from top management.
Hong Kong is one location where the high level of involvement from business leaders are paying off - at 59 per cent, it ranked first for the number of respondents who said their companies had environmental management systems, and it came in second for the number of companies with an established “green team”.
India, China and Indonesia showed the least involvement from senior managers, although India led the field for the most respondents overall (84 per cent) who believe that sustainable business practices are a priority.
Indonesia trails countries in the region in several ways: it showed the lowest numbers for established environmental management systems (19 per cent) as well as the lowest numbers (only a quarter) for having a “green team” in place.
Respondents from developing Asian countries were far more likely to depend on internationally recognised certification such as ISO 140001, a widely-used standard for environmental management, to validate their sustainability credentials.
India led the pack with 62 per cent of respondents saying that ISO 140001 was ‘essential’ or of ‘high’ importance, followed by Indonesia where more than half, or 56 per cent, said the same. Malaysia was third with 48 per cent.
On the other end of the spectrum, nearly half of the respondents from Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and the United States said that such certification was of low importance as a measure of sustainability to their organisation.
About seven out of 10 surveyed said the main targets of their CSR policies were customers, followed by employees.
CSR Asia’s Ms Lindsay said that CSR has become fundamental to any organisation with a significant environmental footprint.
A recent unpublished CSR Asia survey of about 70 corporate CSR experts showed that three of the top 10 CSR issues rated as most important for the next 10 years were environmental issues. They were climate, water and biodiversity.
