Recently, I received an email from a journalist friend of a leading economic magazine in the country, sending an article about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) with the message: “I just finished writing this article, I want to send it to you to read because there are some things similar to your thoughts…”. The article focuses on some perspectives on CSR through the opinions of some quite famous people. Following the subject line of the journalist friend’s article, I randomly wrote some thoughts on this issue.
There have been too many articles analyzing CSR – corporate social responsibility, what it is and what businesses must do and what benefits they get when doing it. Surely, many businesses and businessmen think that CSR means charity. There is also a large number of them who take advantage of CSR for profit or do charity but with an evil heart.
The story of the rich kids who call themselves young businessmen who organize “monster” car convoys to travel across Vietnam to do “charity” but most of those “monster” cars have diplomatic license plates to evade taxes!!! They are evading huge taxes from the PEOPLE and then giving a small part of it to the PEOPLE and calling it “charity”!
Then there are the tycoons who spend all day in newspapers and on TV doing charity here and there, sponsoring this and that,… and preaching about “business ethics” but still owe workers’ salaries for months! There is a guy who absolutely refuses to increase the salary by 1,000 VND/lunch for workers but doesn’t know that the increase in 1 month is only equal to one of his golf matches! There is a guy who sponsors tens of billions for a football team and then “hires” workers to cheer for him but he delays the payment and then refuses to pay it!
Recently, there has been a rise in the number of businessmen doing charity work at temples. They are willing to spend large sums of money, even from borrowed money or workers’ wages, to support the temples. They call that money charity, merit, and think that some invisible force will give them wealth. They do not think that they should be “kind” to their own workers and staff. Use that money to bring a better life to those who work day and night for them, who are attached to them. That is to bring BLESSINGS to themselves and their families.
From another perspective, CSR has been exploited by some businesses to profit in a more sophisticated way, such as the way a company takes advantage of hot issues of the sea and islands to sell bricks, or takes advantage of children with incurable diseases to sell instant noodles!
Environmental protection is also an important factor in CSR. Let me tell you a story about an American partner of our company who was willing to invest in a solar power system even though they knew that the cost was twice as expensive as using the city grid, but through that they reduced 350 tons of carbon every year. They were willing to invest in an expensive filtration system to filter rainwater to protect the earth’s underground water source. They accepted the increased cost of products when using recycled paper packaging or biodegradable plastic bags to protect the environment.
Then there was the story of a British company that visited our company and the top priority was not high product quality, low price but they came to check the working conditions of the workers, to see if they used child labor or prison labor like some Chinese companies, etc. When negotiating the price, they agreed to buy at a much higher price if we used environmentally friendly materials or packaging.
Those stories show how high the CSR issue in developed countries has reached. They put the future of the world and humanity above the profit needs of the business.
Yet in Vietnam, we have a MSG producer who donates countless amounts of money to charity every year to “eliminate hunger and reduce poverty”, but illegally dumps tons of toxic substances into the river every day to poison the livelihoods of countless people for many years!!!
From another perspective, the social responsibility of businesses is to contribute to fighting corruption, which is becoming a burning issue for our entire society. Let’s ask our businesses to agree not to pay customs when importing goods, resolutely not to pay tax officials but pay taxes properly, not to “return kickbacks” for lucrative contracts, … then corruption will no longer have a place to live!
Don’t talk about CSR somewhere fancy, just do CSR well in your own business, that’s good enough: pay taxes fully, be transparent and free of corruption, ensure a living wage for workers, take care of a clean and green working environment for workers, have a nutritious lunch, etc. Just each business doing well for itself is enough to contribute a lot to this society!
Sai Gon, 8-10-2012
Dinh Hong Ky
