Corporate Social Responsibility (WP)

“Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) does not have one particular definition. Some define it as operating in a manner that meets or exceeds the ethical, legal, commercial and public expectations that society has of business; whereas other define it as doing business in an ethical way that respects people, society and the environment”(NEPALI 2008).

CSR is the concept that an enterprise is accountable for its impact on all relevant stakeholders. It is the continuing commitment by the business to behave fairly and responsible and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the work force and their families as well as the local community and society at large (BRITISH COUNCIL 2004).

An important aspect of CSR is how enterprises interact with their internal and external stakeholders (employees, customers, community, NGOs, public authorities, etc.) on a voluntary basis. It is about enterprises deciding to go beyond minimum legal requirements and obligations stemming from collective agreements in order to address societal needs (COM 2006).
CSR generally refers to:

• A collection of policies and practices linked to relationship with key stakeholders, values, compliance with legal requirements and respect for people, community and the environment.
• The commitment of business to contribute to sustainable development (BRITISH COUNCIL 2004).

Regarding the water and sanitation sector, CSR can contain the following components (adapted from BRITISH COUNCIL 2004):

Environmental Protection

The focus in this component is on finding sustainable solutions for natural resources use in order to reduce company’s impact on the environment. Over the past several years, environmental responsibility has expanded to involve substantially more than compliance with all applicable government regulations or even a few initiatives such as recycling or energy efficiency.
Regarding water and sanitation, a company can show its corporate social responsibility  for example by constructing improved and innovative wastewater treatment plants or sustainable sanitation as well as applying rainwater harvesting.

Human Rights

Business practices can profoundly affect the rights and dignity of employees and communities. The main focus is on developing workplaces free from discrimination where creativity and learning can flourish decent codes of professional conduct and where a proper balance can be maintained between work and other aspects of our lives.
Regarding water and sanitation, a company can show its corporate social responsibility by providing clean and safe sanitation facilities and adequate water supply to its employees in order to ensure their human rights (see also the right to water and sanitation).
 

Health Promotion

The workplace is now recognised as an important setting for health promotion. A company can promote adequate health standard by providing a healthy and safe work place for its employees and invest in health promotion in other projects implemented with development agencies.
Regarding water and sanitation, a company can show its social corporate responsibility by contributing to health promotion projects in partnership with development actors such as NGOs. These projects may raise awareness about the correlation of sanitation, hygiene and public health.

Education Development

As education is one of the key elements of sustainable development and pro poor growth, businesses, working together with the public sector or civil society can make an important contribution to providing an access to quality education of all.
Regarding sanitation and water, a company can show is social corporate responsibility by supporting development organisations in education campaigns and projects related to safe sanitation behaviours (see also school campaigns).
 

Human Disaster Relief

Companies, in cooperation with public sector, civil society and international organisations have played an important role in supporting humanitarian relief operations.
Regarding sanitation and water, a company can show its social corporate responsibility by supporting people in disaster areas with clean drinking water or sanitation facilities (see example about the partnership of Coca Cola and UNDP further below).

The main actors are:

• private companies willing to invest or implement CSR activities, probably through sponsoring, giving money so that their brand can be seen doing good things.
• Known NGOs, which are directly or indirectly involved in the process, can be a connecting bridge between the companies and the local level. The NGO can also be a known reference to work with for the private company.
• The implementing organisations at the local level will execute the SSWM project and benefit from CSR.

Communication between development actors such as NGOs and private actors is not easy since the languages they speak is different and this needs to be taken into consideration. One can also consider hiring professionals who understand both sectors and can therefore act as mediators. The private sector’s key objective is to earn profit whereas development sector thinks differently and its objective is to carry out social welfare activities. Even though these organisations speak different languages, there has been a shift over the last few years where both sectors are becoming increasingly interested in working with each other.

First of all, having a partnership with a company can help local communities or NGOs to get money for their local SSWM projects or other tools and knowledge to implement these projects. There are two ways of partnerships: financial partnerships in which direct money flows, and non-financial partnerships in which technical inputs or products are distributed. Since CSR has been linked to brand loyalty and increased consumer base, sponsorship can be one route to promote organisation's CSR.

Secondly, working with a known company can help the developing sector to gain credibility in their own community as well as in the international community. For example, working with Bottlers Nepal (Coca-Cola) the company has been supporting UN Habitat for potable water projects. Choosing the adequate company for your CSR partnership is of prime importance in order to achieve your objective. You can win credibility at the local level, but not necessarily at the international level. Therefore, the development actors need to clearly define their objective before entering a partnership with a private company.

There are two main arguments why CSR are interesting for private companies:

There is the moral argument, where CSR broadly represents the relationship between a company and the wider community within which the company is operating. Examples are eco-marketing, changing consumer expectations, to educate them about environmental problems and to rephrase their expectations so that they take environmental considerations into account in their purchase decisions (SCHALTEGGER 2003).

Beside the moral perspective, CSR can be interesting for private companies out of economic self-interests. In today’s brand-driven markets, CSR is a means of matching corporate operations with stakeholder values and demands. Furthermore, CSR can lead to tax reduction benefits, which is also an important economic argument in some countries (CHANDLER 2004). 

Working with CSR from the Developing Sector’s View

For development organisations at a local level it is important to work on:

• Been credible and transparent with their budget
• Networking with bigger and known NGOs which might have similar interests
• Persist on sending proposals to known companies

Some companies implement CSR activities but do not work in direct partnership with NGOs, clubs or community-based organisations. Companies usually argue that they need to invest too many resources to find a credible NGO to work with and do not charge high overhead costs. Therefore, it is usually easier for small local-level organisations to collaborate with an NGO rather than directly with a big known company.

Planning and Implementing CSR for Companies on a Local Level

The following steps need to be conducted when planning and implementing CSR measures:

• Identify the needs of your community concerning SSWM
• Involve stakeholders into this process by receiving proposals from different NGOs, clubs, schools or community based organisations
• Consider your budget after analysing the proposals and examining their authenticity. Set priority areas and the total budget to be spent on these activities (NEPALI 2008).

Important Steps before Starting a Partnership between Private Companies and NGOs

• In a first phase, a round of dialogue is needed; clarifying issues such as what the development organisation is doing, what their interests are in working with the private sector and how they think this can be achieved. Different stakeholders interested from the private sector and organisations working on water and sanitation issues should be included in the dialogue so that they can discuss on both pros and cons of the partnership. The dialogue will also lead to the areas where private sector would like to work and the mechanism in which they will feel comfortable.
• In a second phase, one should develop a good model for NGO-Private Sector Partnership. The model has to be developed in such a way where both private and development sectors will be interested. Furthermore, the character of the partnership as well as the implementing and monitoring part of the partnership has to be discussed.
• The final phase is to implement the project. This is normally done by local partners who can implement the project in the selected location. The partnership has to be constituted in such a way that both the organisations are involved from the planning process to monitoring and evaluation. The partnership should not be established and work in such a way that the private sector will only give money and the activities are carried out independently by development agencies. In case where a local partner is needed, they have to have a dual reporting system where they will report to the NGO and to the respective private sector. Also the monitoring and evaluation needs to be carried out by both partners.

Example of CSR within Water and Sanitation Sector

UNDP and Coca-Cola work together to rehabilitate water and sanitation systems in tsunami-affected countries (UN-Business 2006).

The goal of this partnership was to support the long-term reconstruction effort with a focus on sustainable, community-based water and sanitation activities in remote, tsunami-affected areas of Thailand, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the Maldives.

The Coca-Cola Company and its bottling partners immediately used manufacturing capability for the large scale production of bottled drinking water and harnessed the distribution and logistics reach of its business system to meet the needs of local communities and various relief and government agencies in affected areas. Coca-Cola contributed just over US$1 million of its direct cash support to the United Nations Foundation, which, along with the United Nations Fund for International Partnerships helped to coordinate a partnership initiative with UNDP designed to build on the UN’s post-tsunami recovery efforts in the region.

The partnership is helping remote, tsunami-hit areas of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Thailand to “build back better” by expanding community access to water and sanitation services and infrastructure.