Malaysia: New nonprofit for journalists and bloggers
July 30, 2010 by admin
Filed under Initiatives
In a bid to defence the media and to promote of freedom of expression in Southeast Asia, a new nonprofit organisation was launched recently. The Southeast Asia Media Legal Defence Network (SEAMLDN) aims to provide legal assistance to journalists and media organisations, support training and also to promote the exchange of information and strategies among lawyers working on media freedom cases. Read more
Ayala: Taking care of the bottom line while seeking a social impact
By Bernadette Reyes, Manila. Courtesy of INSEAD Knowledge.
“Businesses cannot simply operate in societies that are plagued with extreme poverty and where the environment is severely degraded. It is important for businesses to build in solutions to these challenges in their business strategies for their long-term viability and survival.” That’s according to Fernando Zobel de Ayala, who is President and Chief Operating Officer of Ayala Corporation, and concurrently Chairman of Ayala Land, the largest real estate company in the Philippines. Read more
COP 15: What is the Impact on Malaysia and South East Asia?
By Daniel Chandranayagam
What most can take away from COP 15 is a bitter sense of disappointment with the ‘disagree-to-agree’ outcome of the summit, which has been described as “a theater of the absurd” on HuffPost. With that in mind, it piqued my interest to learn that a talk would be presented by the US Embassy Public Affairs Office, at the Annexe Gallery, on the Copenhagen Summit. Read more
Ascott & Capitaland Hope Foundation Offer Relief Aid To Sumatra Earthquake & Typhoon Ketsana Victims
December 2, 2009 by admin
Filed under Initiatives
CapitaLand’s wholly-owned business unit, The Ascott Group Limited (Ascott), and CapitaLand’s philanthropic arm, CapitaLand Hope Foundation, have donated a total of SGD120,000 and other relief aid to victims of the Sumatra earthquake that hit Padang, Indonesia and those affected by Typhoon Ketsana in the Philippines and Vietnam in September. Read more
The Philippines: New CSR Legislation On The Way
September 7, 2009 by admin
Filed under Initiatives
A Philippine lawmaker recently filed a bill to foster sustainable economic and environment development and environment protection. The proposed law is set to institutionalise corporate social responsibility (CSR) in corporate businesses, whether in domestic or foreign partnership and other establishments performing business in the country. Read more
Kuala Lumpur is Part of Reputation Institute’s Network
August 11, 2009 by admin
Filed under Initiatives
The Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, now joins other world business capitals in the global Reputation Institute (RI) network. Kuala Lumpur is the first ASEAN city in the network, which has a presence in 29 countries and is known for helping businesses benchmark and manage their corporate reputations.
RI conducts an annual reputation study, the Global Reputation Pulse, which gives corporations “a clear snapshot of your reputation landscape, and critical information about which factors drive reputation in your particular industry. “ [source: http://www.reputationinstitute.com/advisory-services/global-pulse] Read more
Doing Good, Doing Well
CSR Global Summit 2009
One might say that, in Malaysia, most people think being socially responsible for businesses means apportioning part of their profits towards some worthy cause. Those who have this view would have been confused if they attended the CSR Global Summit 2009, held in Singapore on 13th and 16th January 2009.
Organized by Pinnacle Group International, the event was for senior management, public relations, corporate communications and human resources professionals to learn more about strategies to enhance their CSR efforts.
What was evident from the get-go was that CSR, as most practitioners see it, encompasses far more than just generous donations. A conscientious corporation behaves responsibly from the beginning of its processes to the point it when it withdraws its profits for distribution, and beyond!
Dr Geh Min
Dr Geh Min, the immediate past President of Singapore’s Nature Society, opened the conference with colourful analogies from her experience with the human anatomy. She pointed out that behaving in a responsible manner is fundamental to the health of a business, and not cosmetic application. She also noted that the only kind of cells that grows at all costs is the tumour cell, which eventually destroys itself. Likewise, she believed that corporations should, not only stop looking at profit at all costs, but go beyond the triple bottom line (profit, people and planet) in the future.
CSR reporting
The first day of the conference had a few talks where speakers attempted to define corporate social responsibility, perhaps in order to define the parameters of what a business is obligated to do (and by implication what it does not need to do), or perhaps because there are quite a number of definitions for CSR. Founder and Managing Director of OWW Consulting Malaysia, Dr Geoffrey Williams, succinctly stated that
A responsible business finds out who its stakeholders are, what they want, and deliver it to them.
