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Businesses demonstrate their sense of social responsibility

By Bao Chang (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-01-11 08:01

An exhibition of Xu Beihong's work at Beijing Yanhuang Art Gallery. The gallery contains a modern Chinese art collection and exhibition museum that seek to protect and promote China's culture and art. [Asianewsphoto]

Chinese businesses are increasing their involvement in socially beneficial causes in a variety of ways from donating to charities and sponsoring good causes to the establishment of philanthropic organizations.

However, experts and insiders say that innovation is needed, when initiating corporate social responsibility (CSR) projects, according to a report from Philanthropy Times, a newspaper published by the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

Dong Wenbiao, chairman of China Minsheng Banking Corp (CMBC), a national joint-stock commercial bank established in 1996, said that the value of one person's contribution to society depends on both his sincerity and capability.

"CMBC has made a great contribution to education, the alleviation of poverty, medical care and culture over the past 13 years," Cao Xuesen, director of the CSR department of CMBC, said.

Last year, CMBC established a charity fund, committing 0.8 to 1.2 percent of the bank's pre-tax revenue into it. That amounts to more than 100 million yuan every year. In addition, CMBC contributes 14.5 million yuan to advertise the products of impoverished counties on CCTV channel 7. As a result, more than 50 billion kg of agricultural products have been sold, benefiting more than 10 million people.

One of CMBC's CSR long-term social projects is its 10-year sponsorship of the Beijing Yanhuang Art Gallery, a well-known modern Chinese art collection and exhibition museum that protects and promotes China's culture and art and provides people with the opportunity to enjoy it.

"We defined this as a distinctive and innovative CSR project by CMBC, because we are the first bank acting as a patron of the arts," Cao said.

According to Li Li, deputy secretary-general of China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation, a long-term partner with CMBC on CSR programs, the bank is not only devoted to CSR itself but also helping promote CSR awareness, which is reflected in its innovative projects.

Sustainable development

"CSR project innovation must be based on a company's own characteristics," said Liu Weihua, deputy president of China Corporate Citizen Committee. In his opinion, Cisco, a leading IT company, and Novartis, a healthcare products company, are noteworthy examples.

"We are at the cutting edge of IT networking," said Liu Nianning, director of the corporate citizen department of Cisco. "We also hope we can be at the top globally in terms of being a good corporate citizen. We want to be acting locally and thinking globally and growing up together with China."

Cisco draws on its own abilities when initiating CSR projects in China. For instance, the IT company launched the "Cisco Network Assistance Program" in 2007, an enterprise aimed at inspiring netizens to offer computers and books to schools in remote rural areas via online bartering.

The program has attracted more than 800,000 netizens to participate in and complete more than 3,000 online deals, enabling students in more than 10 schools in impoverished areas to access computers, books and educational equipment.

Cisco has a global E-school program - "Flagship Plan". It is now running more than 360 E-schools in China, covering not only colleges but also vocational education. "We want to help students' careers in the future through network courses," said Liu.

Zhong Hongwu, director of CSR Research Institute, part of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, pointed out that there was still a huge gap in the innovation of CSR projects between Chinese and multinational companies. To narrow the gap, Chinese companies should make up the deficiency in innovation and autonomy and learn from multinational companies such as Cisco.

"Being a good corporate citizen isn't just the right thing to do, it's also sustainable and related to business development, our CEO has noted," said Hong Chaoyang, director of Human Resources at Novartis China.

"We mainly focus on CSR projects related to our business. Saving patients' lives with the best and latest techniques is what we can do and what we want to do," she added.

Novartis has a philanthropic tropical disease research center in Singapore. Any profits made there will be put back into research. The center aims to develop new products and treatments to help the poor.

Right partners

"Another important CSR project run by Novartis is the development of anti-malaria medicine, which loses money but is welcomed in our company because it was promised by Novartis to the World Health Organization," said Hong.

Win-win cooperation between different companies is essential to the innovation of CSR projects. In today's society, cooperation on CSR projects has become a worldwide trend.

Cisco is innovative not only in technical matters but also in terms of collaboration. Its cooperation with Digital China, an IT services provider in China, provides information to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that help vulnerable groups, thereby increasing their efficiency. Thanks to the partnership, the scale of Cisco CSR projects has been broadened to the vulnerable groups NGOs serve.

Cisco's partners in this field range from companies such as Vanke, a Chinese real-estate development company, and Tencent, one of China's internet service portals, to the government and NGOs. Through this mode of cooperation, Cisco acts as an engine of improvement in people's lives.