The 4 pillars of CSR: Corporate citizenship and the way forward
Education
Concretely, PBSP’s education agenda is centered on the MDG target of improving access to quality basic education. This year, PBSP aims to strengthen public-private partnerships to build more classrooms, in order to enable schools to absorb more student enrolment and provide a more conducive learning environment. For the new fiscal year, PBSP will be at the forefront of an aggressive fund-raising campaign to help address the classroom backlog problem identified by the Department of Education. In line with this, PBSP is already setting its sights on having at least 119 classrooms built, 108 classrooms and science labs repaired, and 5,710 desks and chairs provided.
PBSP, in partnership with its member companies also aims to provide more textbooks and other learning tools which include information technology systems and connectivity. Moreover, member companies and foreign donor partners will also work closely with PBSP to continue providing scholarship and educational assistance to at least 8,400 indigent students as well as feeding programs for at least 39,700 children to minimize absences caused by hunger and sicknesses linked to malnutrition. Not to be overlooked is the all important Teacher Training intervention. PBSP is set to have 5,040 teachers trained within this fiscal year.
All these packages of assistance or interventions are aimed at helping students enrolled at the public elementary and secondary schools increase enrolment, decrease drop-out rates, improve the quality of teaching and consequently upgrade their academic performance.
Health
On health, PBSP will support the national health agenda as well as an improved and decentralized health service delivery. It aims to improve people’s access and utilization to quality health services, increase demand for such services, and improve service delivery of health providers. Moreover, it aims to build the service delivery capacity of health providers for better access by vulnerable groups. Concretely, PBSP is spearheading a major-anti tuberculosis program funded by the Global Fund. A total of 4.37 million euros or about P2.5 billion have been earmarked to combat tuberculosis. PBSP has also set maternal health as a major agenda of its programs.
Sustainable livelihood and enterprise development
On livelihood and enterprise development, PBSP aims to further improve the performance of PBSP-supported grassroots-based enterprises. It will also work towards enhancing the enabling environment for sustainable livelihoods, especially among micro, small, and medium enterprise development.
The value chain approach will be the primary strategy of PBSP’s business development services. By linking small farmers and micro producers to the supply chain of more established business enterprises, PBSP hopes to establish a more inclusive economic growth.
At least 10 companies will be engaged to provide the small and micro producers increased access to the market, infrastructure support, input supply, technical assistance, technology and product development, and alternative financing mechanisms. With this program, it is estimated that at least 1,682 jobs will be generated and 15,000 people will be self-employed.
Environment
PBSP will be at the forefront of reducing the country’s carbon footprint through, among others, more sustainable business and production processes. PBSP aims to encourage businesses to practice sustainable production and consumption, as well as promote carbon footprint reduction and carbon sequestration, primarily in the reforestation of critical rainforests and watersheds.
PBSP shall also aggressively promote its Greening the Supply Chain, Environmental Management Systems for MSMEs, and the United Nations Global Compact among its member-companies. Complementing this with further carbon sequestration efforts, PBSP initially aims to reforest 373 hectares of critical watersheds and mangrove areas, and develop 12,558 hectares of upland areas into agro-forestry.
Moreover, PBSP also aims to develop environmental programs supporting joint public-private partnership efforts in disaster preparedness and reducing vulnerabilities of poor communities especially to floods and typhoons.
MDG secretariat
Integral to the implementation and even expansion of these planned programs will be PBSP’s role as the business sector’s secretariat for the MDGs. Given the enormous challenges in meeting the country’s MDG targets by 2015, it is imperative for the private sector to participate more aggressively in these efforts and, consequently, for PBSP programs and projects to be consistent with the country’s MDG initiative.
As MDG secretariat, PBSP must be able to harness and coordinate activities of the business sector with other stakeholders in pursuing the country’s millennium development agenda. The new goals of the PBSP secretariat include redefining the private sector’s MDG campaign structure, strengthening the secretariat to assist the private sector in ramping up its development performance, and setting a more focused campaign agenda and measurable targets to be aligned with the national government’s targets.
OTHER PBSP PRIORITIES
Technology development centers
On its support structures, PBSP’s rural technology development centers in Laguna and Samar will continue to test and disseminate agricultural and fisheries technologies. This year, cost recovery measures will include scaling up of profitable ventures such as vermi-compost and production of tilapia, grouper, milkfish fries, and fingerlings. Farm and hatchery business operations shall be linked up with the existing supply chain of specific companies and local industries.
Expansion of corporate memberships
As programs gear up for expansion, PBSP is likewise gearing up to build its resources to finance the said expansion. To do this, PBSP aims to enhance donor management and membership relations, as well as increase active involvement of member-companies. The joint membership and corporate communications unit will embark on an aggressive membership recruitment program, and develop a comprehensive membership database and more “business solutions-type” of Corporate Social Responsibility projects for member-companies.
Further, PBSP aims to organize nationwide executive briefings and fellowships highlighting CSR success stories that other companies could support and/or emulate. It also eyes its member-companies to attend business forums other than CSR events, and conduct project site visits targeting the chief executive officers and/or presidents of member-companies. This will also be the direction of PBSP’s newly refurbished corporate strategy planning team and corporate citizenship center.
Managed funds
“Our fund donors, local and foreign, have different standards on how their funds are managed,” PBSP chief executive adviser Klaas Oreel says. “My job is to make sure that the funds are handled efficiently and transparently. Equally important is the task to attract more foreign funding to help the less fortunate in the Philippines.”
Oreel is providing strategic advice as well as managing the corporate structure including finance, human resources, information technology, membership, public relations, and general services. He will also work on increasing PBSP corporate membership. “We want to make all companies in the Philippines be involved in PBSP and corporate social responsibility.”
Delivering and measuring performance
But it is not just about how much business has donated to worthy causes; it is about how corporations collaborate to give hope and ultimately make significant and measurable improvement in the lives of less fortunate Filipinos.
PBSP is adopting a rigorous monitoring and evaluating systems, specific metrics, and other instruments to show the actual results of the programs that their donors are investing in. But these are not just numbers that usually end up in written reports just for show. These numbers are specific measuring tools demonstrating the effects of PBSP’s programs to the people and how these solutions contribute to the state of the nation.
“Like in the case of education, we want to know not only the number of the classrooms we have been able to construct or the number of children that we have fed or textbooks that have been deployed. More than just reporting the volume of the number of the investments have been put in, we have to be able to show what extent all these contributions are affecting the reduction of the dropout rate or to the improvement of achievement test scores,” PBSP executive director Rafael Lopa says.
This strategic look at development projects presents a very valuable and significant contribution in the way CSR is practiced. “We should really measure the real impact of these contributions, because we want to prove to our donors that their money is being spent wisely,” Lopa adds.
Aside from financial assistance, PBSP also encourages its member-companies to lend their expertise in their projects. “We actually ask companies to lend their expertise. To help us, we use business solutions to actually manage projects better or help communities. For the Global Fund TB program, we tapped the expertise of one of our member companies in rehabilitating laboratories diagnostic centers. This helped to achieve the standards of what Global Fund is asking us to do,” Lopa reveals.
On the evolution of CSR, Lopa notes: “There are new challenges that have evolved. New schools of thought have emerged. Before, if you look at CSR it equals corporate giving. It only talks about budgets of companies set aside to be donated for small projects but now it’s about how your core business can affect the society and the environment. When you do business now, you just don’t look at your profit bottom line, you have to take into consideration the effects of your business to the people and the planet.”
PBSP is on track as it makes its way forward to the future of corporate citizenship from its landmark beginnings 40 years ago. Today, the 25th of January 2011, PBSP marks a ruby-red milestone as it celebrates four memorable decades of the great business merger for social development.
Other queries may be addressed to:
Philippine Business for Social Progress’ Communication Unit
PSDC Building, Magallanes corner Real Streets
Intramuros 1002 Manila
Tel: 527-3741 Fax: 527-3743 Email: pbsp@pbsp.org.ph