If you are planning on coming to our CSR Asia Summit, September, 14-15, please register fast. We are already at 80% capacity and expect a sell-out event. This year's Summit is the most exciting yet and includes innovative panels and workshops being held by some of the leading experts in the region. We have keynote speeches from senior executives at Citi, ANZ Bank, Sime Darby and Cathay Pacific. There are also pre- and post-Summit training events to maximise the benefits of your trip to Hong Kong. Details and online registration here.

Summit workshops topics include:

• Carbon disclosure
• Millennium Development Goals
• Climate change
• Disaster preparedness
• Asian transnational corporations
• Investor perspectives and ESG issues
• Community investment
• Sustainable value chains
• Corporate governance
• Developing a CSR strategy for your company
• HIV/AIDS
• Sustainable ingredients
• Reporting
• The Asian Sustainability Rating

 

This Friday we will be officially launching the CSR Asia Tokyo office.   The launch is very kindly hosted by Bloomberg and cocktails follow the session in which Richard (CSR Asia Chairman),  Mr. Daisuke Shintani, Mr. Seji Kawazoe and Mr Peter Pedersen will all be speaking.  The session will be translated simultaneously and promises to be an interesting event.  Richard, Makiko and myself (Erin), hope that if you are in Tokyo you can join us for the event.  If you would like to know more please contact Makiko in our Tokyo office.

The CSR Asia Summit is now just two months away and spaces are filling up fast. There are keynote addresses from Cathay Pacific, Citi, Hong Kong Exchange and Clearing, ANZ and CPA Australia. Numbers are limited and the Summit on 14th and 15th September will the most innovative and cutting edge conference that we have organised.

Summit workshops topics include:

• Carbon disclosure
• Millennium Development Goals
• Climate change
• Disaster preparedness
• Asian transnational corporations
• Investor perspectives and ESG issues
• Community investment
• Sustainable value chains
• Corporate governance
• Developing a CSR strategy for your company
• HIV/AIDS
• Sustainable ingredients
• Reporting
• The Asian Sustainability Rating

Our innovative CSR Bazaar sessions will include shorter presentations on:

• Community investment measurement
• Water issues
• Biodiversity
• Consumer issues
• Communications for CSR

Half-day pre- and post-training  sessions include

• ISO26000
• Social media
• Carbon footprinting
• Measuring community investment
• Stakeholder engagement

 

CSR Asia's Executive Director Stephen Frost was on TVB Jade's 財經透視 ["Finance Magazine"] last night. This show is in Cantonese only (so he goes under his Chinese name of 霍迪), but the subject was Oxfam Hong Kong's recently released CSR Survey of Hang Seng Index Constituent Companies 2009, for which CSR Asia did the research (you can see the survey report here). Click here to watch the full show (the segment starts at the 14.45 minute mark). Also featured are Oxfam Hong Kong's Kalina Tsang and CSR Asia's Anita Wong in a cameo performance in the CSR Asia office...

This was the title for our CSR Wednesday during the week (see brochure here), which attracted an audience of around 70 people into a room at the British Council in Hong Kong (thanks to our hosts for the venue). I moderated a panel of three speakers (who didn't really need much moderating); Dan Ye (from PR Newswire Asia), Kenth Kaerhoeg (from Coca-Cola Pacific Group) and Jean-Michel Dumont (from Ruder Finn Asia).

We'll have a full wrap on the discussion in next week's CSR Asia Weekly, but a couple of things came up that got me thinking.

The first one was something that Kenth said about getting the volume on CSR right (not too loud, not too quiet). He used two examples from the company's own experience (one where he thought they got the volume right, the other one where they didn't), and noted that being quiet and humble is useful, but the problem is that there is then no guarantee that you will be "caught doing the right thing". I liked that expression; we often talk about getting caught out doing the wrong thing, but when companies talk softly about their CSR they may find their efforts go unnoticed completely.

The second thing was something Dan said. He was also talking about volume, and noted that although "greenwashing" is a problem for many press releases, the flip side of that was "greenblushing" (when a company is shy about talking up its CSR). After he finished his comment I asked the audience if anyone had heard this term before, and nobody had. There seemed to be agreement that it was an interesting term. Dan was quick to point out that he'd seen the term a few days ago on a blog, so I immediately Googled it when I got home. And sure enough, it's out there...

Thanks to Hewlett-Packard for sponsoring the event as always, and PR Newswire Asia for being an event partner. Thanks also to the speakers who were frank, smart and engaging. I think we all could have stayed for another hour asking questions.

The Pearl Report -- a local Hong Kong current affairs show on TVB Pearl -- focussed on carbon auditing this week, and featured CSR Asia's Jacqui Dixon (pictured left) and Helen Roeth (click here to see the report -- you'll need to sit through a 15-second advertisement, so don't be concerned if you see something initially appear that looks nothing like a serious report on carbon auditing...).

The report is good; it shows how carbon auditing is growing in Hong Kong, and why organisations are starting to measure carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions. Helen appears in footage showing her at work with a client (KPMG), and Jacqui was interviewed in our Hong Kong office.

Richard Welford, co-founder and chairman of CSR Asia (pictured), is quoted in this morning's Bangkok Post as saying Thailand's lagging CSR implementation may be due to the fact that CSR is still a relatively new concept for Thai businesses. He was commenting on results from the Asian Sustainability Rating (in which CSR Asia is a partner), which rated - among other countries - Thailand's 20 largest companies by market capitalisation for 2008 and 2009.

Dr Welford said Thailand may be missing out on global opportunities due to its relatively poor approach to value-chain issues. He added that Thai companies were generally more conservative in disclosure than their counterparts in Asia.

Read more here.

CSR Asia's most recent office (The CSR Asia Center at AIT) is located in Bangkok, and is a joint venture with the Asian Institute of Technology. You can see more here.

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.

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.

CSR Asia is pleased to announce the opening of our new office in Guangzhou. Due to strategic and commercial considerations, the Shenzhen and Guangzhou offices have been  merged into one.

• Tel: +86-020-38032334
• Fax:+86-020-38092152
• Address: Room 609, F6, South Vault, Jinbin Dragon-fly Building, 49#, Huaxia Road, Zhujiang New Town, Tianhe District, Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province 中国广东省广州市天河区珠江新城华夏路49号津滨腾越大厦（南塔）6层609室

CSR Asia in association with the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) is pleased to announce the opening of our new initiative in Thailand. The Asian Center for Corporate Social Responsibility (ACCSR) at AIT will be a new focal point for CSR Asia's consultancy, research and training in Thailand and the Mekong sub-region. Working closely with staff at AIT we hope to expand our training activities and to launch an innovative new Professional Master's degree program in the next 12 months. The collaboration which has been planned over the last year will enable CSR Asia to expand the range of its activities and our geographical coverage. The new Director of the Center is Leena Wokeck, previously working for the Global Reporting Initiative in Amsterdam and she can be contacted at lwokeck@csr-asia.com. There will be more on this exciting new initiative in tomorrow's CSR Asia Weekly.

I am off to the Philippines today to be involved in a workshop to launch our Asian Sustainability Rating (ASR) there. There has already been a lot of local publicity about our new tool with Philippine companies, Petron Corp. and Ayala Land Inc., making it to the top 30 in the 2009 assessment. The Asian Sustainability Rating is anchored on CSR Asia’s proprietary research. Based on sustainability disclosure, it ranks about 200 largest listed companies in 10 key markets operating across Asia-Pacific. The covered countries are Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Petron Corp., which ranked 26th, was the highest-scoring Philippine company, with a score of 70.6 percent. Ayala Land Inc. ranked 29th, receiving a mark of 65.7 percent. Other Filipino firms that made it to the top 100 are Manila Electric Co., ranking 72nd with a score of 45.1 percent; San Miguel Corp., ranked 77th with 44.1 percent; Ayala Corporation, ranked 85th with a score of 41.2 percent; Energy Development Corp. ranked 91st and scoring 39.2 percent, followed closely by SM Investment Corp. at 95th with 38.2 percent and by Globe Telecom at 97th with 37.3 percent.

Mary Hanlon, who interned at CSR Asia in Hong Kong a couple of years ago, has just won the Systems for a Sustainable Fashion Industry Award. Fashioning the Future, organised by the Centre for Sustainable Fashion at London College of Fashion, attracted some strong entries in various categories this year, which is a good sign for the industry. Mary won the award for her website, Social Alterations, which is an online education lab for socially responsible fashion design. We've been exceptionally lucky with the quality of interns at CSR Asia and Mary was no exception. So while we're very pleased she's won this award, we're not too surprised...

The CSR Asia team are all in Kuala Lumpur this week for our CSR Asia Annual Summit. The big event is Tuesday and Wednesday but we are also hosting training sessions, roundtables and stakeholder sessions with our Community Investment Roundtable (CIRT) and CSR Asia Strategic Partners (CASP) for the rest of the week.  The Summit programme can be viewed here. Still just enough time to join us and 300 other delegates....

CSR Asia's Anita Wong is featured in a supplement on CSR in today's Sing Tao Daily (星岛日报) - in Chinese only. You can download the article here - as a graphic.

As I mentioned yesterday, there is a forum tomorrow in Hong Kong on CSR (CSR Asia's Anita Wong will be one of the speakers). Interestingly, today's am730 - on of the free Chinese-language newspapers available in Hong Kong has a little article on the forum (you can see it here - Chinese only). It's good see the paper picking up on it and publicising the event.

Anita has been contacted by the Hong Kong Economic Times for an interview after the forum, and I will link to that interview next week when they run it.

CSR Asia's own Anita Wong will be speaking at a CSR Forum on Saturday in Hong Kong. The event is being hosted by the Peninsula Junior Chamber and will be in Cantonese.

Interestingly, Anita was also on a local radio show late last week (talking about CSR in Cantonese for younger Kong Kong listeners); it seems as though CSR is finally getting onto the agendas of younger local people in Hong Kong, which is good news.

Click here for a bigger version of poster (Anita [黄翠珊] is second from the left).

Date/Time: 25 July, 2.30pm to 5.00pm. Venue: 香港中环干诺道中64-66号厂商会大厦27楼。

CSR Asia is quoted widely in the Manila Bulletin today which is running an article on community investment and poverty alleviation in the run up to The Manila Forum. The Philippines seems badly affected by the economic downturn and there is a heightened role for the private sector in protecting the most vulnerable. The article stresses the need for a strategic aproach to CSR. It says that there are three key issues that are important in creating successful community investment projects during the current economic downturn. First, effective stakeholder engagement and the inclusion of community needs assessment and skills development in project planning. Second, there needs to be an emphasis on measuring outputs and impacts of CSR projects to ensure that CSR is delivering real value for money for both communities and businesses. Third, there is a need to properly communicate the projects and their successes. You can find out more about the Manila Forum here.

This week CSR Asia released our 2008 Annual Report.  This is our third annual report and is our commitment to provide information to our stakeholders about the way that we manage CSR Asia and the impact of the work that we do.  For the first time this year we have included our carbon footprint and detailed the ways we are looking to reduce our environmental impact.  We have also provided information about how we promote CSR and have looked at ways in which to measure the impact of this promotion in Asia. 

The report has been presented to our Strategic Partners who provided us with useful feedback and input suggestions for the future; we hope that others will find the report useful and we look forward to any feedback you may have. A full copy of the report is available here.

We are pleased to announce the establishment of the Asian Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility at AIT (ACCSR) as a joint venture partnership between the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) and CSR Asia. It will be located at AIT in Thailand. The mission of the Centre will be to advance the development and implementation of effective sustainability solutions for and by business as well as to facilitate development of the supportive framework conditions for CSR and sustainable development. ACCSR aims to carry out training, research, consultancy services and eventually deliver a professional Master's degree in CSR. The ACCSR will provide a platform for dialogue and innovation for the representatives of the private sector in seeking creative solutions for the challenging issues of sustainable development.

ACCSR will also create a platform for dialogue among the private sector as well as public sector, government and civil society organisations for the generation of capacity for sustainable business and community development. It will be central to building a knowledge base for CSR in Asia through training and capacity building. The outcome of the ACCSR’s activities would be wider implementation of effective and innovative CSR strategies by the private sector in the Asia-Pacific region and thereby contributing to the sustainable development of the region.

AIT and CSR Asia are now seeking to appoint a Director of the Centre. The position requires someone with leadership skills able to engage the private sector, NGOs, government agencies and donor agencies. The Director will work closely with the academic units within AIT as well as other offices of CSR Asia to develop regional training and education programmes and consultancy services. You can find the job description here.