It has been globally accepted by all CSR practitioners that defining CSR across board is not and cannot be uniform; this is because what may be deemed as being socially responsible in one place may not be so in another. Different authors at different times have come up with varying definitions and these have all been accepted in good faith.
However, defining CSR can sometimes become very myopic and totally out of context, which means that the actual benefits associated with the practice and use of CSR may not be fully realised. This is currently the case with the Nigerian definition of what CSR is.
CSR in Nigeria is synonymous with CSI which is corporate social investment, corporate philanthropy or corporate community development. For the CSR practitioners who understand that this is just an aspect of CSR and not the totality of it, it is a very short sighted definition. CSR simply means that a business must be found socially responsible not only in one aspect but in every aspect of its business, adopting this definition and practising it means that we as Nigerians can benefit from the things that comes with having companies in the country practice CSR and not just CSI.
Why do we define CSR as CSI? Is it because of the word social that is caught in between corporate and responsibility or is it because of past events during which we have attributed negative environment effects of business activities to their lack of responsibility? Recently a CSR bill was introduced into the National Assembly, this bill seeks to legitimise Corporate Philanthropy by making companies responsible for community development thereby attempting to redefine the context in which businesses should play.
This is not to say that businesses should not play a part in community development issues, but we need to get a proper understanding of whose primary responsibility it is and when it may become mandatory for a company to engage in community development.
Primarily the government is responsible for building and developing communities, they should provide the basic infrastructure that is needed for communities to properly function and this should be done through tax collected from both individuals and companies alike plus other income. So a company’s first social responsibility in this instance is to ensure that it pays taxes. However, there have been instances when companies have played foul with the over riding importance of environmental sustainability and have disregarded the right of a community to exist through employing business methods which have left the environment in a bad state e.g. dredging, use of chemicals, disrupting the habitat/ecosystem and destroying sources of livelihood.
In the instance where a company has been found primarily responsible for destroying its environment through the negative impact of its operations then it must pay for it, this company should be charged with the responsibility of restoring the habitat and also there must be clearly articulated regulations in place to safeguard our environment and its inhabitants. A CSR commission should thus embody a framework that will seek to proffer guidelines according to international best practice and with a local flavour which will outline what a company’s social responsibilities should be; this must of cause be aligned to existing laws and regulations and should not seek to duplicate laws that already exist. Its guidelines must be progressive in nature which means that it must recognise that companies must make profit, but the current emphasis here is to make profit in a responsible manner and not other wise. The commission can also seek to make recommendations for existing laws and regulations to be enhanced in line with international best practice, new findings or to add value to communal sustainable development, it should be geared towards monitoring and ensuring that the various business applications or methods employed by small, medium or large companies should always have positive impact on sustained environmental and socioeconomic development.
Sometimes the problem is simply lack of good governance and not a CSR issue, which is to say that companies pay taxes due and governments do not apply those taxes to develop the communities as they should or on the other it is simply an inability to enforce regulations which will make sure that these companies are compliant or it could be existing laws are insufficient and the companies refuse to apply self regulations and simply capitalise on a bad situation – then it becomes a CSR issue. In the latter instances the company is said to be grossly socially irresponsible and should be engaged in actively paying back to restore any negative impact on its operating environment or stakeholders.
However, here in Nigeria we have found ourselves in a peculiar situation where the primary responsibility of community development is being shifted from the government to corporate organisations irrespective of whether they are to blame for some form of environmental damage or not.
The idea is not to make our communities depend on hand outs from different corporations through philanthropy but to increasing make them self dependent, we want to see these communities encourage entrepreneurs who with the help of infrastructure can build their own present and future existence in a way and manner in which their living standards is comparable or even better than what is been found anywhere in the world. The focus of this CSR bill should not be placed on philanthropy, the world as seen philanthropies been dished out to developing countries for an untold number of years and we are still a set of people who are largely impoverished. Quite frankly this has in effect made the people more dependent on these hand outs and now the philanthropic organisations are constantly burdened with the quest for ensuring sustainability of their different projects as opposed to having them completely handed over to these communities who will in turn make the projects sustainable on the long term.
We all desire to see a situation where a beneficiary can collect these gifts and make them work for the good of the entire community and simply not expect more or become dependent on them. If philanthropy has not worked then what will? The danger with Corporate Social Investment again is how it is currently been practised, asides from a couple of multinational companies who practice stakeholder engagement in order to understand societal expectations or needs, others simply carry out projects that bring no meaningful value to anything or anyone asides from their brand image. If as the bill suggests companies will get requests from communities on proposed CSR (CSI) activities who is to say this is in the best interest of the entire community or even aligned to the potential donor’s (the company) business objectives, we must not forget that a vital aspect of a company’s CSR is that for a company to be considered socially responsible it must remain profitable, otherwise we will have other aspects of irresponsibility to deal with – such as the inability to pay its employees, shareholders and even support the economic objective of the larger society by providing employment or paying its taxes.
The real CSR solution is several but certain things have become very obvious, which is that these handouts have encouraged regression in the area of development, we are yet to experience sustained development, the people always expect more instead of working with what they have been given to increase the value. They expect that others will work and they will be given part of it, majority have become mentally lazy, unable to create anything new that will add value, especially in today’s world of massive innovative growth competing for global economic space. What we want is to encourage the kind of support that will bring about sustained economic independence, innovative spirit through entrepreneurship.
CSR is - compliance with existing laws and going beyond, that is if existing laws are inadequate, sound ethical practices, adoption of environmentally friendly initiatives, sound business practices that continuously reduces its negative environmental impact, one that takes into cognisance and applies good human right methods, that believes in employee development, fair and transparent labour practices, good financial governance, practices health and safety. Ensures that its supply chain adopts same CSR policies, activates reputation risk management which will continuously test the opinions of different stakeholders with the sole objective of ensuring that risk areas are effectively tackled, sets targets which will align its own commercial sustainability with overall societal sustainable development etc.
So what happens to CSI, CSI should evolve into Public Private Partnerships where there is collective partnering between government and the private sector. This will allow the government to continue to drive its primary responsibility whilst bringing in superior expertise and accountability from the private sector. Then it should also be voluntary and incentivised. Companies who engage in CSI stand to gain a number of things which is inclusive of enhanced brand image and license to operate. The primary responsibility of companies is to pay taxes; the primary responsibility of the government is to provide the necessary framework for people to enjoy an increasing standard of good living.
Should there be a commission? – Yes! but what should be its main duties? - Guidelines and monitoring. It should monitor compliance of companies to already laid down regulations that may negatively affect the society, it should make proposals if these regulations fall short of both local and international best practices (and ensure it carries all stakeholders along), it should provide guidelines and also a platform for continuous review of good corporate practices that best serve the interest of the good of the society. It should provide adequate guidelines for the practice of CSR that will support an agenda of national sustainable development. The story of community development, however, is the story of good governance, the involvement of companies in this regard should remain voluntary, supportive, and ethical in terms of paying accurate taxes and also adopting of environmentally friendly practices (this though must be monitored).
George
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