Sharing with the community

CSR is often dismissed as a warm and fuzzy concept with no real business benefit. However, that view is changing as companies realise there are broad business and other benefits to good CSR.

A global IBM study, for example, found that many companies now see CSR as a growth opportunity rather than just a regulatory compliance or philanthropic effort, with 68% focused on generating revenue through CSR activities while a further 54% believe CSR initiatives help provide a competitive business advantage.

Ultimately, however, CSR is about so much more than the bottom line. Consumers, investors and employees all look for indicators of long-term success and strategy, and not just the bottom line, says Olivia Lum, Founder of the Hyflux Group and the President of Singapore Compact, a national society created to progress Singapore’s CSR framework.

To stay ahead of the curve, she says employers should look to implementing CSR as a good business strategy as “it aligns sustainable profits with social development goals”.

Banking with a heart

The banking community in Singapore has taken a proactive approach to CSR, and Standard Chartered Bank is one bank that has met with measurable success in its CSR initiatives. Ray Ferguson, Regional Chief Executive for Singapore and Southeast Asia, Standard Chartered Bank, says the bank has always been attuned to building a sustainable business that is “aligned to the needs of the community”.

The bank is involved with several community and charity programmes, a significant one being ‘Living with HIV’. The programme is a peer-to-peer education initiative to raise awareness of HIV in the community.

Ferguson explains that the programme was launched in 1999 by employees who realised that their colleagues were absent due to their own or their family members’ ill health in Africa. The bank realised that HIV was having a “detrimental impact on many employees in key African markets”.

With the programme, Standard Chartered has reached out to 50,000 individuals in schools and companies in Singapore to educate them about HIV.

As the founding member of the AIDS Business Alliance in Singapore, the bank’s senior management has given talks at workshops and seminars at places such as NTUC and Singapore Management University. The bank was also involved in the seventh Singapore AIDS conference on how to implement a HIV/AIDS workplace programme.

However, Ferguson candidly says there are challenges in adopting CSR programmes in any company, and in Standard Chartered’s case, that challenge is achieving active participation. “Employees may not fully understand why volunteering is so important and may be reluctant to take part in the activities. But over time, we have created a very strong culture, led by our management team,” he says.

The bank has undertaken various measures to take get its staff involved, including three days of volunteering leave in a year.As a business strategy, the bank’s CSR initiatives have not gone unnoticed. Standard Chartered has been attracting new talent because of enhanced public perception due to its CSR programmes. “Fifty percent of our new graduate applicants cited our approach to CSR a factor when choosing Standard Chartered over other companies’ graduate programmes,” says Ferguson.

Leading the way with charity

Singapore’s biggest transport provider, SMRT Corporation, has been involved in CSR programmes for years so it was no surprise when it received the President’s Social Service Award in 2010.

“At SMRT, we recognise that we are part of a larger community and therefore must play a part in supporting and growing it,” states Goh Chee Kong, Vice President of Corporate Marketing and Communications for SMRT.

The corporation adopts three charities each year, provides volunteering services with more than 6,000 staff involved in fundraising and also provides grants for helping the elderly. One of SMRT’s biggest CSR initiatives is the “SMRT Silver Tribute Fund” (STF), which was set up in 2006. The STF is a fundraising initiative to support critical programmes “that will enable needy elderly to live out their twilight years with dignity and security. These are the elderly who have no family or are abused, abandoned and/or forgotten, and living alone,” says Goh.

SMRT has raised more than S$3 million for more than 10,000 needy elderly over the past four years. In 2010, The STF donated $90,000 to help 500 needy elderly in the north-west district to help repair homes and purchase essential household items. More than 850 SMRT and ITE College Central staff and student volunteers undertook household repairs and installations in these homes.

Goh says that staff enjoy meaningful community work, but admits that the corporation found it challenging to find a cause that it and the staff could identify with. “One of the challenges for us is identifying areas/causes which we can leverage on the strengths of the company to serve and give back to the community. Staff must also be able to relate to these causes so that they remain committed,” Goh said

Law with a cause

Apart from associations with non-government agencies and charitable institutions, many organisations are committing their personal time to social projects. At law firm Rajah & Tann (R&T), staff and management are actively involved in several volunteering efforts that include pro-bono legal work to singing in a band for charity.

Gregory Vijayendran, Partner at R&T, says that the firm lends a hand at the Legal Aid Bureau and the Legal Clinic. The Legal Aid Bureau usually assigns cases to a panel of solicitors and R&T is on this panel. “Through this avenue, we have the privilege of helping indigent individuals who face bread and butter legal issues,” says Vijayendran, who adds that it enables lawyers to represent such individuals “to have their day in court”.

Though the biggest challenge for lawyers is to take time to do their pro-bono work during their busy schedules, he says they are enthusiastic about the work, especially junior members. It is an invaluable opportunity for the firm’s lawyers as junior members get to “interface with clients”, which they would otherwise be unable to do on a daily basis, says Vijayendran, who adds that it provides junior members with “a meaningful and valuable training ground” to assist them in becoming better lawyers.

The solicitors of R&T also provide a pro-bono helping hand to the needy at the Bukit Batok Legal Clinic, where they offer legal consultation on various cases ranging from matrimonial disputes to bankruptcy.

The road ahead

Lum of Singapore Compact thinks the major obstacle to CSR in Singapore is a lack of understanding and misconceptions about CSR. However, she says there is a growing trend of companies adopting CSR programmes.

“It is interesting to note that despite Singapore’s economic and social development, there is a relatively low level of CSR compared to other countries. This does mean that there is ample room for growth.”