This year over 500 companies are included in the Asian Sustainability Rating™.   The Asian Sustainability Rating™ (ASR™) is an environment, social and governance (ESG) benchmarking tool developed by Responsible Research and CSR Asia. Launched in 2009, ASR™ examines the publicly available information of the leading listed companies in ten Asian countries and provides investors, companies and other stakeholders with a view of strategic sustainability of these companies.  This year the country that comes out top is Korea and the leading companies in the top four positions are Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, United Microelectronics Corporation, China Light and Power and City Developments Limited.  The results are being announced this morning at the CSR Asia Summit, a summary report can be found here and for more information about how your company scored or to be rated please contact us at CSR Asia here

Somebody sent me a link to the Tactical Technology Collective the other day, and I've been looking around the site and thinking there are probably more social media-savvy people in NGOs these days than there are in companies. Tactical Tech is an international NGO that helps train other NGOs in technical expertise to increase the impact of campaigns in social justice and human rights. They say on their website that they've trained nearly 1,000 people so far.

Tactical Tech's most recent project is "10 tactics for turning information into action", a set of resources "to help rights advocates capture attention and communicate a cause using the digital technologies and information available to them". Most of their activities focus on Africa and Asia.

Interesting... I wonder how many companies are as familiar with these tactics as the NGOs?

You learn something everyday - for me today was the term astro-turfing.  Being an ex-hockey player I was intrigued about how astro-turfing could relate to a company and CSR but now I get it thanks to this article.  Basically depending on who you read, it would seem that astro-turfing is an attempt by an activist (or PR company/lobby group) to create a campaign that appears to be a diverse, grass root, independent reaction to an issue. 

The challenge for a company if and when they are on the receiving end of a campaign (the example given in the article about Resorts World here in Singapore receiving targeting template letters from those wanting to express a view on the import of whale sharks into Singapore)  is to be able to determine whether they are a victim of genuine astroturfing (perhaps one person with a grievance creating an entire website or campaign) or whether they are receiving organised feedback that is in fact representative of a diverse section of society - and whether or not if the difference can be established if they require different responses.

So from a CSR perspective, the issue would be whether or not it would be ethical or not for a company to be behind astro-turfing (for example in relation to a product) or whether or not a company would be a victim of an astro-turfing or a genuine campaign and how to respond to either.....

I said I learnt something new today - not that I necessarily resolved where that learning took my thoughts!

Whenever one reads about CSR in countries such as Bangladesh, we get a rather different slant on the role of business compared with elsewhere. Not surprisingly one of the issues increasingly being pushed forward is the private sector's involvement in poverty alleviation. There is of course a good reason for companies to think about this since poverty alleviation is important in maintaining the economic growth of countries and companies. But this article argues that "corporate contributions through social initiatives, targeting the disadvantaged or the marginalised, remain minimal". So what is the role for companies operating outside of the least developed countries to get involved in poverty alleviation projects? I often point out to companies in places like Hong Kong, that they could do a lot more with their financial and non-financial resources if they redirected some of their CSR efforts out of a rich economy and into a poorer neighbour. But many are reluctant to do that and remind me that the core business case for CSR is their brand and reputation (which is linked to Hong Kong and not Bangladesh). But in fact, I think they are missing the point. I rather think that any company based in a developed country can do a lot to enhance its brand, reputation and trust in demonstrating that is can make a difference where the business case might not be so obvious. I for one would love to see a Hong Kong based company (for example) showing me how they have impacted on development in Cambodia or Laos or Bangladesh. Let's not forget that another key part of the business case for CSR is differentiation. Differentiate yourself by starting a community based project on poverty alleviation is my advice.