“Grow A Tree” in China
July 22, 2009 by admin
Filed under Initiatives
Specialty chemicals company LANXESS has donated €10,000 to support the “Grow-a-Tree” project in China. The programme, implemented by the non-profit organization “Trees for Life”, helps children in elementary schools learn the basic principles of nature and ecology.
The support from LANXESS provided 31,639 students from elementary schools in the provinces of Shanxi and Gansu with locus tree seeds and biodegradable planting cartons. The seedlings are kept either at home or at school and will be planted outdoor in spring 2010. The participating schools, students, teachers and staff received certificates for their involvment and help in the project. Read more
LANXESS Receives China’s Safety and CSR Awards
April 30, 2009 by admin
Filed under Initiatives
In China, specialty chemicals company LANXESS (Wuxi) Chemical Co., Ltd. has received the “Safe Producing and Integrity Enterprise in Jiangsu Province in 2008″ and “Outstanding Wuxi Company in Implementing Social Responsibility” awards. These two recognitions highlight the importance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in LANXESS’s global business strategy and reinforce the company’s commitment to sustainable development in China and the Asia Pacific region.
Since the launch of the “LANXESS Goes Asia” initiative, LANXESS has accumulated an impressive list of awards and recognitions covering excellent contributions in human resources, product, technology, R&D, business partnering, branding, communications, safety, CSR and environmental sustainability. Details on these awards can be found on the Awards channel of the LANXESS Goes Asia Web site.
For the most recent two accolades in China, the award ceremony was held in March 2009 during the “Safe Production Promotion Work Conference” in Jiangsu Province.
LANXESS is one of only two companies -among 30,000 participating companies-honored with the “Safe Producing and Integrity Enterprise in Jiangsu Province in 2008″ award.
The “Outstanding Wuxi Company in Implementing Social Responsibility” rewards those who have made great efforts in achieving the best performance of social responsibility. Twenty-eight companies received this award.
Dr. Hu Dongqi, General Manager of LANXESS (Wuxi) Chemical Co., Ltd., says, “We are very proud to receive these two awards. The Wuxi plant serves as an important manufacturing and technology location for LANXESS in China and the Asia Pacific region. We will continue to deliver product and service excellence to our customers through our philosophy of prioritizing safety and maintaining integrity.”
Martin Kraemer, CEO of LANXESS Greater China comments, “Sustainability is always our focus. We implement LANXESS’s strong HSEQ standards at all plants worldwide and successfully combine economic growth with environmental and social responsibility.”
Kraemer adds, “I am convinced that LANXESS will help boost the sustainable economic growth in China, and in Wuxi particularly, by introducing high quality chemical products and advanced green production technology.”
LANXESS (Wuxi) Chemical Company Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of LANXESS AG, is located at the Wuxi National High and New Tech Industrial Development Zone. A broad range of high performance products are manufactured at the site to meet the increasing demands of customers from the leather, automobile and electronics industries in China, as well as in the Asia-Pacific region. Besides, the LANXESS Wuxi site is home to the company’s largest research and development centre for leather products in Asia-Pacific, and a state-of-the-art Research and Development Testing Centre for engineering plastics. These two facilities provide valuable and timely technical support to its customers as well as help them in their innovation drive.◊
Shift in Global Corporate Disclosure
February 3, 2009 by admin
Filed under Interviews
A conversation with KhattarWong’s Tan Chong Huat
Mr Tan Chong Huat, Managing Partner of KhattarWong and the Head of its Corporate and Securities Laws Department, recently participated in the CSR Global Summit in Singapore. Chairman of corporate governance committees and director of several public listed companies, Tan is equipped with the expertise on corporate governance and compliance, and is experienced in corporate matters within the region.
Tan also has extensive experience in banking and project finance law in Singapore and the region. The CSR Digest caught up with the man who has been named a leading practitioner in many reputable professional publications, including Asia Pacific Legal 500, AsiaLaw Leading Lawyers.
Mr Tan Chong Huat
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.
