Stabroek News, Business Editorial
Corporate Social Responsibility
Friday, March 14th 2008
Last Wednesday the Canadian High Commission in Georgetown hosted a
forum on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), a concept that has
gained considerable ground in recent years in the global discourse on
the issue of desirable operating practices in the international
corporate community.
In practice CSR is about the infusion of socially acceptable practices
into corporate behaviour. The refinement of the concept is linked to
studies on the nexus between various forms of socially responsible
behaviour and the growth, development and even the survival of people
and communities.
Canada being a country that is well-known for its large and
technologically advanced mining sector, the forum placed the discourse
on CSR within the framework of the desirability of environmentally
friendly practices in the mining sector, recognizing at the same time
that CSR embraces the behavioural practices of the corporate community
as a whole. It is no secret, of course, that the global mining and
resource extraction practices are facing a range of social challenges
arising out of divergent views on the impact of mining on communities
and the environment. The case for the sector's track record on socially
responsibly practices is often weakened by numerous examples of
environmental degradation and economic exploitation and abuse of the
human rights of indigenous communities.
The tenets of CSR oblige mining operations to pursue their extraction
of minerals in such a manner as to ensure a mindfulness of the need to
protect and preserve the environment and a sensitivity to and support
for the social, cultural and economic interests of host communities -,
in most cases, indigenous communities and that, in considerable
measure, is what last Wednesday's forum addressed.
While the concept, in its purest form, derives from a voluntary, "good
citizen" approach to socially responsible corporate behaviour - though
it should not be confused with corporate philanthropy - it has now
become enveloped in a strong element of compulsoriness, a circumstance
that has resulted from increasing global emphasis on issues like
environmental protection, human rights, the rights of indigenous
peoples and the right of workers to fair wages and safe working
conditions. In fact, it is largely because issues like these have
assumed an increased global significance that CSR has been
incrementally refined to a point where it has become a 'discipline' in
its own right.
While it is probably reasonable to assume that there are business
enterprises that have for years been quiet adherents of CSR long before
the term was even 'invented', the elevation of CSR to its current
exalted status and the element of compulsoriness derive, at least in
part, from a realization that issues like the preservation of the
environment and the protection of people's rights, including the rights
of indigenous peoples, are too important to be left to the altruism of
the corporate community whose primary focus, after all, is profit.
But that is not all. The concept of CSR is premised on the perfectly
sound argument that environmentally friendly operating practices and
respect for the rights of workers and host communities - in the mining
and forestry sectors, for example - can actually create a more socially
and economically sustainable working environment. In other words, CSR
is good for business.
The degree to which CSR has become institutionalized in the global
business environment is manifested in the fact that agreements between
countries and major international mining and forestry entities actually
contain clauses that bind companies to various forms of socially
responsible behaviour particularly in relation to the environment and
interaction with host communities.
Guyana has followed this trend in its contractual agreements with
mining and forestry companies. As far as we can tell there has been an
acceptable degree of adherence to CSR by expatriate companies even
though there are examples of mining undertakings by expatriate
companies that pose environmental challenges.
The same level of compliance with CSR standards is of course not
evident in some locally run mining operations where self-regulation
simply cannot be relied upon and where logistical considerations make
official monitoring and enforcement difficult.
A good example of the challenge that we face in domestic mining
operations lies in the recent incident in Region Eight where roads were
dug up, water pipes displaced and an entire community discommoded as a
result of irresponsible mining activity.
This of course gives rise to another issue. While the importance of an
environmentally responsible approach to mining (and logging) operations
can hardly be overstated, questions arise over Guyana's ability to
effectively enforce responsible practices in those sectors and
particularly in the mining sector.
Prime Minister Samuel Hinds who speaks for the mining sector in the
National Assembly is not unaware of this dilemma though one suspects
that his 'report card' of "eighty to ninety per cent good" and "ten to
twenty per cent bad" as far as responsible mining practices by local
operators is concerned, errs on the side of considerable generosity to
the local miners.
Incremental hinterland development and the increasingly important role
of the mining (both gold and bauxite) and forestry sectors to the
country's economy are bound to place increasing pressure on both the
government and the corporate community to take a more serious look at
incorporating the tenets of CSR into the wider interior development
strategy. Here it is not just a question of protecting the environment
and respecting people's rights. It is also a question of adhering to
internationally acceptable CSR standards failing which, as the
international CSR lobby intensifies, we may well find ourselves
confronting economically damaging sanctions.
Beyond the mining sector, of course, there are other issues that
surface within the CSR framework……… like the questionable nature
of health and safety practices in several public and private sector
workplaces, the poor record of several local businesses as far as the
remittance of employee NIS contributions is concerned; and the piles of
garbage derived from commercial activity that litter our streets and
clog our drains.
One hopes, of course, that the initiative by the Canadian High
Commission serves as a precursor to the creation of a strong and
enforceable policy framework for CSR in Guyana given the importance of
socially responsible corporate behaviour to the country's social and
economic advancement.
What we do not want is for CSR to become a cliché out of which emerges
a host of 'experts' and a mind-boggling body of academia that places
the issue in a thicket of time-consuming and meaningless discourse that
loses sight of the importance of expeditious implementation of socially
responsible practices in the local corporate community.
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