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The Summit will put together 24 cutting-edge CSR issues in the Asia-Pacific region organised under different themes:

1. NGO expectations of business
Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have become an indispensable group of stakeholders due to their scrutiny of the social and environmental conduct of corporations and the threat they pose to a brand’s image and reputation. Their reactions towards business practices, either positive or negative, often project the extent and success of a company’s CSR efforts. How can corporations play their part in meeting the expectations of NGOs alongside those of government and workers? With a focus on various NGO-related case studies, participants of this session will learn about:
  • Significant campaigns led by NGOs and their impacts on corporations’ public image
  • Pre-emptive and reactive measures from the corporate sector in cooperating with NGOs
  • The impact of poor law enforcement and unaccountable governance on different groups of workers and the role of business in improving standards
2. Community based social enterprise development
Governments may spend a fortune on building infrastructure and providing basic services, but no government in the world is able to get people out of poverty by simply using the welfare approach. Through a case study on a company-village partnership, our workshop leader will show how social enterprises can take an innovative form and help people get out of poverty. The interactive workshop will cover:
  • The reasons why the poor fail in business
  • The role of business in “privatising poverty alleviation
  • How companies can partner with rural communities on various fronts to improve their quality of life
3. Sustainability reporting: Asian dynamics
Companies are increasingly being asked to disclose information on their economic, environmental, and social performance. This session will take a close look at the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), one of the most widely used sustainability reporting frameworks. Not only will the technical aspects of reporting be examined, but interesting case studies from the ICT industry and the oil palm sector will also be presented. Join this session to hear about:
  • The benefits and challenges of reporting
  • How sustainability reporting is utilised as both a CSR initiative and a stimulus to drive CSR in the company
  • How to manage both internal and external stakeholder expectations through communicating your company’s sustainability message
  • Trends in reporting in Asia
4. Tackling human trafficking along supply chains
There are now more modern day slaves in the world than have ever existed. This session will examine the scourge of human trafficking, bonded labour and forced labour and will discuss the role of business in ensuring it is not involved in or complicit in human trafficking. In particular, it will examine risks to business posed by human trafficking in the supply chain. It will also however, challenge business to broaden its definitions of the supply chain to ensure that the business is not unknowingly complicit in human rights abuses.


5. Business-NGO partnerships for development: From philanthropy to capacity building
Moving beyond philanthropy towards longer term partnership is vital in development projects. But just as important is knowing how to understand your partners’ motives, manage your corporate partnerships, and revise objectives and activities over the duration of the partnership. Supported by concrete case studies, this panel will investigate the more challenging elements involved in business-NGO partnerships for capacity building.
  • Plan China will introduce The Partnering Initiative’s 12 stages of the partnership process, focusing on three of these stages in the context of capacity building
  • UBS and Merck will share their approaches to partnership with case studies in leadership development, livelihood development and natural resource management
6. Creating sustainable solutions: Social enterprise and socially responsible investing (SRI)
This session will unravel the key to nurturing social entrepreneurs and enterprises. An esteemed panel of experts and innovators will share their wisdom, experience and creative insights with the following focuses:
  • What is needed to be a social entrepreneur, what do social entrepreneurs need, where and how they can access funding and other types of support
  • How agile and innovative social entrepreneurs can benefit from such relationships, looking at opportunities and challenges from all sides
  • Exploring issues such as innovation, finance, scale-up and mutual benefit
7. Stakeholder engagement
Stakeholder engagement is increasingly seen as a must for any socially or environmentally friendly company, and thousands of NGO-corporate partnerships have been launched over the past decade. As stakeholder engagement is becoming a mainstream business tool, there is a need to examine the effectiveness of approaches. The panel will be looking at learnings from around the world, including:
  • How stakeholder engagement impact is best measured and monitored
  • How stakeholder engagement can be integrated into local development plans
  • How stakeholder engagement can help manage reputational risks
8. A space for women workers
Women workers in Asia often struggle with noncompliant business practices of factories and suffer under socioeconomic poverty. Limited access to career advancement opportunities, job security, education, social mobility and control of resources are also commonly found across industries. This panel will address:
  • The biggest challenges faced by women in the workplace
  • The opportunities for greater empowerment and gender equality for women workers through training and partnerships with NGOs
9. Carbon footprinting and solutions
In order for a company to understand how to reduce its climate change impact, it first needs to understand its carbon footprint and the core ingredients needed for a credible climate change strategy. What are the appropriate boundaries to choose when accounting for greenhouse gas emissions? How far down the value chain should companies be looking? What does it mean to be ‘carbon neutral’ and how can companies ensure credible strategies to achieve this? This panel will illustrate how to go about measuring a company’s carbon footprint and the various solutions and steps required to develop a credible climate change strategy.


10. Partnerships for sustainable development: Examples of best practice
Credible partnerships that can deliver the skills, knowledge and capacity for creating change are at the core of sustainable development. This panel will discuss issues concerning collaboration between the public sector / NGOs and the private sector. It will provide examples of best practice in the following areas:
  • The role of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) in infrastructure development in Asia with examples from India
  • Building ICT capacity at both a global and regional level
  • Combating commercial sexual exploitation of children
  • Developing partnerships with Thai farmers in creating economic, social and environmental sustainability
11. Soft laws and governance
The implementation of ‘soft law’ has enabled corporate stakeholders to become a watchdog for corporate activities; but to what extent are these laws, in the absence of statutory enforcement, effective? This session is perfect for those who want to gain an understanding of the powerful elements of soft law; as well as NGOs’ participation in influencing corporate policies. Discussions will include:
  • Cases in ethical issues relating to property appraisers in Thailand and around the world
  • Various case studies on successful and ineffective soft law in exercising governance
  • The role of shareholders and NGOs in enforcing soft law upon corporations
12. HIV / Hepatitis B and anti-discrimination strategies
Misconceptions about communicable diseases such as HIV/AIDS and hepatitis B have often led to discrimination and social stigma. These challenges have strong implications for businesses in terms of human resource management. Stakeholders have expectations of companies to create a healthy and inclusive community workforce and to provide their employees with equal access to career and development opportunities. Drawing on specific examples from the Asia-Pacific region and globally, this panel will highlight:
  • Examples of how the business community is addressing the challenges of employee health discrimination in partnership with its communities and governments
  • The reason why such approaches make “good business sense” for the bottom line, as well as for ethical and corporate social responsibility reasons
13. Business responses to climate change
It is now beyond reasonable doubt that climate change is happening and that it represents a risk to the ultimate stability and sustainability of business operations. True climate leadership is indicated by companies rethinking their business strategy; engaging with their suppliers, customers and peers; and developing products and services that will thrive in, and help bring about, a low-carbon economy. This panel will hear presentations from companies that have integrated climate change strategies throughout their business operations and are taking a lead in their respective sectors to address the key challenges facing them.


14. Evaluating community investment
Increasingly, there is pressure for companies to understand the impact of their community investment. However, this is seen to be a challenge by many companies. While moving the focus too much on evaluation could run the risk of taking resources away from valuable project work, focusing on the impact can help to ensure that the resources of businesses are being used well and contributing to sustainable development in the region. This interactive workshop will examine the issues regarding measurement of corporate community investment and look at tools such as the London Benchmarking Group (LBG) and a balanced scorecard approach. It will examine questions such as:
  • What do a company’s stakeholders want to know regarding the impact of community investment?
  • How can companies demonstrate the impact for their business and for communities?
  • How can measurement help to improve the quality and strengthen the impact of community based initiatives?
  • The challenge of community investment from a global vs. local perspective
  • What have been the lessons learnt from other companies in the region
15. Sustainable and Responsible Investment: Investor initiatives
Sustainable and Responsible Investment (SRI) initiatives have moved from a perceived niche market to being increasingly viewed by investment professionals as a necessary part of the investment due diligence process. The terminology for the investment community refers to these issues as ESG; environmental, social and corporate governance indicators. ESG can affect the performance of investment portfolios and some countries have become part of the regulatory disclosure requirements, especially for pension funds. In this session the initiatives that will be discussed by the panel are:
  • The growing importance of ESG issues in the investment decision
  • The carbon disclosure project - one of the most meaningful collaborations between global institutional investors to environmental risks and data
  • The United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment – a global initiative and set of investment principles for asset owners, fund managers and service providers with over US$15 trillion in funds under management
  • Why the Government Pension Fund of Thailand has signed up to the UNPRI
16. Supply chain capacity building
How do we build capacity in the supply chain? How do we help the supply chain to move from compliance to commitment? How do we achieve CSR goals and create sustainable change? Participants in this session will be presented with best practice case studies from Vietnam and China and learn:
  • The key elements required to integrate CSR in supply chain management
  • How corporations, communities and civil society groups can work together to develop a three-way partnership to achieve supply chain efficiency and better social and environmental outcomes
17. Tackling corruption
International companies are caught between two opposing trends. A series of spectacular US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) cases, as well as the Siemens case in Germany, point to a pattern of tighter legal enforcement. However, this pattern is still uneven both at the international level and – still more – between different Asian countries and regions. In practice, companies continue to come under pressure to make illicit payments to win contracts, or to negotiate their way through opaque regional bureaucracies. This presentation will:
  • Review lessons learnt from the latest international cases: what are the implications for business practitioners in the Asia-Pacific region? How are other companies responding?
  • Engage delegates in an interactive workshop using case studies and integrity dilemmas drawn from real life to discuss what strategies companies can adopt to avoid integrity lapses and still win business in high-risk environments.
18. Harmonising codes of conduct in the supply chain
The Global Social Compliance Programme (GSCP) is a business-driven programme for companies which want to harmonise their respective efforts in order to deliver a shared, global and sustainable approach for the continuous improvement of working conditions in global supply chains. It offers a global cross-industry platform to promote knowledge exchange and best practices to build comparability and transparency between existing systems. To this effect, GSCP is developing a set of reference tools and processes that describe best practices and provide a common interpretation of fair labour requirements and their implementation. This session will help you understand how participants work hand in hand to:
  • Build consensus on best practices in labour standards and their implementation in global supply chains
  • Develop a clear and consistent message for suppliers globally
  • Drive convergence and reduce duplication
  • Strengthen collaborative efforts for building capacity and training
19. Engaging the private sector with the Millennium Development Goals
Business has been key to the fast paced change and development in the region. While Asia is a region of great prosperity there still remains great poverty. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set ambitious but achievable targets for improving the quality of life globally. These reflect and are based upon local and national priorities. Business is an integral partner in tackling development challenges. Participants of this session will learn more about:
  • The role of companies in contributing to the achievement of the MDGs in terms of supply chains, purchasing practices, product development and pricing policies
  • A review on how Asia is doing in the MDGs compared to Africa and Latin America, and its implications for business
  • A for-profit, proactive approach that engages the private sector with the state and NGOs in effecting sustainable development
20. The business case for biodiversity
The world has seen an unprecedented rate in the loss of biodiversity due to human activities. The loss could have a lasting impact on the environment and directly affect the survival of mankind. But why does conserving biodiversity matter to your business? The panelists of this session will show us how integrating biodiversity protection can contribute to improved business practices. They will also explain the risks of ignoring the issue and the benefits addressing it strategically by making reference to the seafood, plantation and tourism sectors and beyond.


21. Partnerships in microfinance and poverty alleviation
Microfinance is increasingly viewed, in Asia and around the world, as an effective and powerful tool for poverty reduction. This session will examine the link between expanded access to microfinance services and poverty alleviation; why despite considerable growth and innovations in microfinance in recent years, millions of poor people in the Asia region still do not have access to basic financial services; and how multi-sector partnerships, strategic alliances and other types of collaborations are helping to strengthen the microfinance industry and overcome some of the barriers to increased outreach and sustainability. Hear different perspectives, experiences and partnership examples from an international not-for-profit development organisation that has established a pan-Asia microfinance network, a global financial institution with extensive philanthropic and commercial involvement in microfinance, and one of Asia's most successful MFIs (microfinance institutions).


22. Bringing the environment back in the supply chain
Consumers and other stakeholders have increasing expectations on companies to take environmental responsibility for their operations. Large brands are under even greater pressure. But how easy is it for companies to control their extremely complicated supply chain? Participants of this session will be introduced to various global-scale environmental programmes and learn about:
  • The effects of these programmes in the supply chain
  • The challenges faced by the multinationals in their efforts to improve the environment in their complicated supply chains
  • The opportunities that exist to overcome such challenges
23. CSR reporting through project partnerships – the case of imPACT
imPACT brings together dynamic stakeholder engagement with a new approach to reporting and communications. Developed jointly by Edelman and CSR Asia the imPACT philosophy is based on shared responsibility and joint accountability. The framework is based on a four stage process: Assess, Engage, Partner, Lead. It is an issues based approach to CSR and ideally suited to companies that want to engage with specific challenges such as climate change, water, human rights, poverty alleviation or health issues, for example. The innovative part of the project is the identification of partners who are actively involved in the publication of an issues based report.
  • Linking stakeholder engagement, transparency and reporting
  • Building partnerships based around shared responsibility and joint accountability
  • Producing innovative issues based reports with credibility
24. Business responses to water challenges
Water is a critical issue in Asia and beyond. Water shortage and poor water management can and do lead to increased malnutrition and disease, loss of biodiversity and agricultural production, reduced economic growth and social sustainability, and conflict. With an aim to engage businesses with more proactive water management, this panel will help participants to:
  • Understand the key factors in managing water resources
  • Learn about the most innovative initiatives to engage with stakeholders, enable access to safe and affordable water, support education, mitigating environmental, economic and social risks, and develop sustainable relationships with local communities
CSR Asia Summit 2008 | Copyright © CSR Asia