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Filed under: About CSR Asia Asia — Richard Welford @ 08:56 am |
This year's CSR Asia Summit on 14-15 September in Hong Kong looks like being even more exciting than ever. We are now in the process of putting together key workshops for our annual event that will provide CSR practitioners with information about latest developments. We are pleased to be able to announce cutting edge workshops on the following topics:
- Community investment and cross-cultural engagement
- Measuring and reporting your carbon emissions
- Business strategies for adapting to a changing climate
- Water risks down your supply chain
- Asian companies going transnational
- What investors are looking for: Environmental, social, governance (ESG) issues
- A new agenda for human rights: Engaging governments
- The role of business in achieving the Millennium Development Goals in Asia
- ISO26000
- Disaster preparedness: The role of the private sector
- The 2010 Asian Sustainability Rating
- Measuring the impact of your community investment on business and the community
- Developing a sustainable development strategy in your organisation
And there is more to come. You can keep up to date with the latest developments here. Registration will be open soon.
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Filed under: Asia Standards — Richard Welford @ 16:23 pm |
It is very interesting that we are seeing a sudden surge of interest in ISO26000. We are running one of our ISO 26000 trainings in Singapore on Monday and we have a full house. There is interest from business and from business associations. A recent story from Korea has the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) saying that companies had better get prepared for the new standard. I SO 26000 provides a blueprint for socially responsible business practices and Korean companies are being told to get ready. The KCCI sent surveys to companies at the end of 2009 and found only a small number of companies getting prepared. However, it argues that although ISO26000 may only be a mere guideline, it has the potential influence the way local companies export. ISO26000 will be the most comprehensive CSR standard once it is published and we at CSR Asia are already helping companies get prepared for something that is going to set the CSR agenda for the next ten years. You can see the full story from Korea here. |
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Filed under: CSR Asia Weekly — Yoshi Ko @ 19:44 pm |
Click here to view the Week 5 issue of CSR Asia Weekly. This week's issue includes the featured articles on:
- The Business of Green Cities - Sustainable development of tea industry in China - The land investment story - fear of unchecked land grabs- The one-issue cause: PR over substance If you'd like to be included in our e-mailout list, click here to subscribe. We upload and email CSR Asia Weekly out every Wednesday. |
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Filed under: China Taiwan Supply chains Workplace practices — Stephen Frost @ 09:51 am |
Last year, a Foxconn worker committed suicide after accusations relating to an iPhone prototype. Now, Just last week, another young employee (this time a production line worker) has been found dead in one of the company's factories in China. Reports from China say the death is 'suspicious'. Ma Xiangqian, who joined the company in October last year, was found dead in a factory dormitory on 23 January. The police determined cause as 'sudden death' after initial investigation. But Ma’s sister has alleged there are scars on her brother's body, that he was black and blue in the chest area, had blood in his nose and a depression in his forehead. She believes that Ma was possibly beaten to death at work. Foxconn issued a press release on 25 January, and has offered a reward of 500,000 yuan to anyone who can provide clues that lead to the truth. More here (in Chinese only). |
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Filed under: CSR Asia Weekly — Yoshi Ko @ 19:25 pm |
Click here to view the Week 4 issue of CSR Asia Weekly. This week's issue includes the featured articles on:
- Asia’s new Free Trade Area: Risks and opportunities for CSR - Is this a way to protect rights? - Key CSR milestones in China for 2009 - Hong Kong mulls e-waste legislation If you'd like to be included in our e-mailout list, click here to subscribe. We upload and email CSR Asia Weekly out every Wednesday. |
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Filed under: Hong Kong Demographics — Stephen Frost @ 12:35 pm |
There's a story in The Standard today on Hong Kong's declining birth rate that should be compulsory reading for all companies in the Territory. Here's the killer stat:
In the next five years, the number of students promoted to secondary school in Hong Kong will decrease by 33 per cent.
Last year, 63,000 students were promoted to the first year of secondary school. In 2014, the Education Bureau estimates that will drop to 42,000 (based on enrolments for 2008-09). The Standard focuses on school closures and the loss of teaching jobs (fair enough), but the other story is surely the 33 per cent decline in those attending university or receiving other types of training, the 33 per cent decline in numbers of young people moving into the workforce, and ultimately a 33 per cent decline in the number of potential employees. Companies are going to feel this in five short years...
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Filed under: CSR Asia Weekly — Yoshi Ko @ 19:24 pm |
Click here to view the Week 3 issue of CSR Asia Weekly. This week's issue includes the featured articles on:
- The Indonesian military and its business interests - CSR and industry issues in Vietnam – Global Compact Local Network- Is your work killing you? - New year, new climate (re)solutions? If you'd like to be included in our e-mailout list, click here to subscribe. We upload and email CSR Asia Weekly out every Wednesday. |
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Filed under: Human rights Sri Lanka — Stephen Frost @ 17:03 pm |
An organisation called Boycott Sri Lanka has produced a couple of videos under the provocative title of No Blood For Panties. Both videos, from one of which the screenshot left is captured, are available here. The highly implausible premise of the second video (entitled "Therapy") is that a guy - upon removing his girlfriend's panties before sex - sees the "Made in Sri Lanka" tag and can't perform due to picturing human rights abuses in that country. As the guy states during the ensuing relationship counselling session (resulting from his girlfriend's inability to understand why boycotting Sri Lanka is important to him): "I took her panties off. And I checked the label. And it said made in Sri Lanka [...] Okay, when you think about panties you think about someone sexy, right? When you think about Sri Lanka, you think about killing and murders..." No Blood For Panties is part of a campaign to encourage Americans to boycott products made in Sri Lanka. You can see more on the campaign here.
The solution is to buy panties made elsewhere, I guess. Too bad the people who made the video don't give us any hints on where that might be... |
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Filed under: About CSR Asia Asia Hong Kong — Richard Welford @ 10:16 am |
The CSR Asia Summit 2010 will be held in Hong Kong on 14th and 15th September. As usual there will also be pre- and post-Summit training events. Mark your diaries! The Summit has rapidly gained a reputation for being the most ground-breaking and innovative CSR event in Asia. We are now looking for speakers, workshop facilitators, sponsors and supporting partners to ensure that the Summit is of the highest possible quality. If you would like to be part of our cutting-edge Summit, please contact Jimmy Huen at jhuen@csr-asia.com. |
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Filed under: China Human rights Companies — Stephen Frost @ 15:20 pm |
So far, commentary (a lot of commentary -- over 6,000 items on Google News, and more than 4,700 blog posts) has concentrated on three main themes: i) Google is doing the right thing morally (good CSR) and has gained a lot of good will with its announcement to withdraw from China if it can't offer uncensored search results; ii) Google has just made the worst business decision of its short life by abandoning what will be a significant source of revenue as China's internet grows; and iii) Google wasn't doing so much business in China anyway, so leaving is no big deal. We could call these three views the Hoo-ray, the Who-pay?, and the Who-cares? view of the world...
But seriously, what if Google knows something about China that the rest of us don't? Here's what I'm thinking.
What if Google got to work on some serious stakeholder dialogue in China after it was accused in 2006 of collaboratoring with the Chinese government in suppressing dissent in return for access to a booming internet market? What if -- as as result -- they have a much more nuanced understanding of how their stakeholders perceive search engines, the internet, Google's role in China, and the potential for Google to push the envelope when it comes to internet openness. What if Google's New Approach to China is the result of highly informed management deciding that the time is right to push this issue in China?
I know. There are a lot of ifs. But what if I'm right? What if Google knows something about China that we don't? What if Google is betting they'll win this fight and the Chinese government will accommodate a discussion on uncensored search results? If that happens, then Google gets huge street cred on human rights, and gets to stay in China and eat into Baidu's market share. Every analyst under the sun is crunching the numbers on Google leaving, but I haven't seen any try to work out what Google staying would mean to its market share... I bet it would mean a lot...
There are a lot of ifs. But Google management doesn't strike me as being overly stupid. Maybe I should buy some shares...
The picture above shows people laying flowers on the Google sign in tribute outside its offices in Beijing (original can be seen here). |
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Filed under: China Human rights Companies — Stephen Frost @ 14:17 pm |
The picture left ( click here for larger version) is from the Chinese media and shows that i) the Google story is getting solid coverage in China, and ii) some editors in the mainland have a sense of humour. The story it accompanies can be found here, and simply notes that Google will no longer filter search results in the wake of security breaches. And yes, it's a real Simpsons screenshot (original here).
As an aside, I've spent a bit of time today browsing Chinese BBS forums for commentary on the Google stance (and there's a lot of commentary, by the way), and it's interesting to see a lot of support for Google inside the country (some people are really imploring Google to stay). Google had around 30% of the market, which some people see as negligible, but I think the reality is that many people use Google sometimes because it simply does some things better than Baidu (the major search engine in China).
Of course the real issue is whether we'll ever see a Chinese Bart writing the line "I will use Baidu before asking dumb questions"... |
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Filed under: CSR Asia Weekly — Yoshi Ko @ 19:29 pm |
Click here to view the Week 2 issue of CSR Asia Weekly. This week's issue includes the featured articles on:
- Google reconsiders China strategy - Aging Singapore – a business issue - The international expansion of Chinese dam builders - Post COP15 – What’s next for climate change in business? If you'd like to be included in our e-mailout list, click here to subscribe. We upload and email CSR Asia Weekly out every Wednesday. |
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Filed under: News on CSR China Companies — Stephen Frost @ 17:52 pm |
I've been on the phone to various people in the human rights activist community in Hong Kong, and one of them said something I hadn't really considered. When I asked her what she thought of Google effectively saying it will withdraw from China over hacked human rights activists' Gmail accounts (as stated here on the now famous " A New Approach to China" post) she said: "Why would anyone bother doing this in China when the Public Security Bureau can simply visit an activist, confiscate their hard drive, copy it, return it, and nobody will ever know?"
As I've said in the posts below, this story has by no means played out and the next few weeks and months will be very interesting indeed... |
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Filed under: News on CSR China Human rights Companies — Stephen Frost @ 17:01 pm |
There's a lot of online commentary emerging that goes along the lines that Google is standing up to Chinese internet censorship now because it's only Number 2 in the market (with a 31% share after Baidu) and can afford to walk away. This doesn't strike me as a particularly believable hypothesis, simply because 31% is still a big share in China, and there are reasons to stay in China other than revenues. So I was interested to see this post from Robert Scoble, which includes an email excerpt from someone at Google saying they'd just had their best quarter in China ever (even though their business in China is immaterial in the grand scheme of things).
It's early days yet in this game, and there's a lot of guesswork going on. Things will get interesting over the next couple of months if i) Google actually pulls out (a foregone conclusion, it seems), ii) various players in the human rights field start pressuring other companies with a Google-did-it-so-why-can't-you type of argument, and iii) other companies start to do the same thing. There are a lot of "ifs" in there, but who would have thought 24 hours ago that Google would have posted its now famous " A New Approach to China"? |
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Filed under: News on CSR China Human rights Companies — Stephen Frost @ 16:25 pm |
Following on from an earlier post, here is a roundup of online reactions to Google's announcement yesterday that it will no longer censor searches on Google China:
Shanghaiist: "...it seems like the general consensus is: Yeah, bye bye G.cn. ... people have been leaving flowers in front of Google's Wudaokou office in Beijing as their sign of respect to a company that has brought the knife to its own 700-employee throat."
Via Shanghaiist: An interesting Tweet: "Several Google.cn fans camped outside Google China office in Beijing. Voiced support for internet freedom..."
CWSJ: "Should Google leave China? At last look on WSJ.com, the main, English-language Web site, 80%, or 361 votes, said a resounding Yes. However, on Chinese.WSJ.com, the Chinese-language version, asked the same question in Chinese, 72% of a total 934 voters said No." Interesting...
James Fallows (The Atlantic): "For Chinese readers, let me emphasize again my argument that China is not a "threat" and that its development is good news for mankind. But its government is on a path at the moment that courts resistance around the world. To me, that is what Google's decision signifies."
Josh Gerstein (Politico): "But the ominous tone of Google's statement is remarkable. Perhaps the fight over human rights has moved from a government-to-government issue to another plane involving huge multinationals and their customers."
Sarah Lucy (TechCrunch): "This was a scorched earth move, aimed at buying Google some good will in the rest of the world; Chinese customers and staff were essentially just thrown under the bus."
Michael Tan (CNET Asia): "The "oo" in Google are balls of steel." Haha... |
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Filed under: Philippines Poverty Climate change — Richard Welford @ 13:53 pm |
Hunger amongst people in the Philippines has risen to a fresh high with one in four households claiming in a new poll that they experienced having nothing to eat. A fourth quarter survey put the hunger measure at 24% as of December 2009, equivalent to 4.4 million families. It surpassed the previous record high of 23.7% hit in December 2008. So hunger is on the increase. Government officials blamed the problem on exceptionally bad weather (particularly typhoons). Moderate hunger, referring to those who experienced it "only once" and "a few times", rose to 19.3% (3.6 million families) from 15% (2.8 million families). Severe hunger (covering responses of "often" or "always") rose to 4.7% or 870,000 families from 3.8% or 700,000 families a year earlier. The impact of climate change is going to impact the poor first and worst and unless we begin to take action now, expect these sorts of tends to continue. Full report here. |
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Filed under: News on CSR China Human rights Companies — Stephen Frost @ 10:52 am |
The biggest CSR news story of the day is Google's announcement that it will no longer censor searches on its Chinese search engine within China. I've got more on this in today's CSR Asia Weekly (which will go online later today). This decision is getting a lot of buzz online, and the next few weeks will be very interesting.
Update: Jeff Jarvis weighs in with this: "I know some will say that Google wasn’t doing that well in China anyway (it controls 31% of the market); they’ll ascribe cynical motives. But I say: Name one other company that finally said “enough!” and put ethic, morals, and company standards over its lust for the Chinese market."
Via Jeff Jarvis, here is Jonathan Zittrain, professor of Internet law at Harvard Law School and co-director of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society: "In a world in which we are so used to public relations massaging of messages, this stands out as a direct declaration. It's amazing." |
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Filed under: Singapore Companies Consumer rights — Erin Lyon @ 10:04 am |
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McDonald's in Singapore is having a pig problem. Not a problem with a living pig but a missing toy pig. The pig toy was to be part of the 12 character Doraemon set depicting the animals of the Chinese Zodiac calendar. But McDonald’s decided not to include the pig toy to avoid offending Muslim customers, and had a Doraemon Cupid toy in its place instead. The removal of the pig has made it to the press with journalists expressing that actually it was Chinese consumers who were offended - with those born in the year of the pig missing out on the chance to collect the full set. A McDonald's spokesperson said that the Pig was replaced with Cupid as Valentines Day is also coming up. Sociologist Daniel Goh said that if McDonald’s did not consult Muslim opinions before making the decision to exclude the pig toy, the company had then presumed Muslim sensibilities. He added that it amounted to a form of self-censorship. Some have stated in response to the media stories that whilst McDonald's could have handled the issue better at least it was a sign that the company was trying to be culturally sensitive, others are commenting that McDonald's should be boycotted until they get cultural sensitivities right. So what is the right thing to do in this instance? Some stakeholder engagement to find out what people think about your product and how you market it? |
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Filed under: Asia Child labour — Richard Welford @ 15:33 pm |
A new report suggests that child labour continues to be a major problem in Asia. Five Asian countries, notably, Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, China and the Philippines have been placed in the 'top six countries' linked to individual products that use child or forced labour. (The sixth is Brazil.) The US department of labour has released a list of goods produced by child or forced labourers in foreign countries after the US Congress asked for its compilation. India was linked to the highest number of products made with child labour or forced labour including soccer balls and clothing. Myanmar was noted the most often for forced labour in products like rice, sugarcane and rubber. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has found that 69 per cent of child labour worldwide is in agriculture. The most common agricultural goods produced by child or forced labour are cotton, sugarcane, tobacco, coffee, rice and cocoa. Both forms of labour for cotton production were found in countries including China, Pakistan and Uzbekistan. More here. |
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Filed under: CSR Asia Weekly — Yoshi Ko @ 20:08 pm |
Click here to view the Week 1 issue of CSR Asia Weekly. This week's issue includes the featured articles on:
- The new Asian Center for Corporate Social Responsibility at AIT - A Green Roadmap for Malaysia in 2010 - The Chinese Corporate Philanthropy Index - Food safety – An opportunity If you'd like to be included in our e-mailout list, click here to subscribe. We upload and email CSR Asia Weekly out every Wednesday. |
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