11 Apr 2016

The mayor of Gaborone, Mr Kagiso Thutlwe has encouraged students and not to end the spirit of Corporate Social Responsbility (CSR) after completion of their studies, but to rather pass it to the work place.

“As we encourage all the companies to be part of you in performing CSR you should also know that one day you shall be working for those companies,” he said. Mr Thutlwe said this at the seminar which was conducted by 4th year University of Botswana students held under the theme: Can corporate social responsibility be equated to philanthropism.

He said in the past years, the primary concern for the business world was just to make profit but to date the believe was that the business community has to take responsibility of the CSR.

“It is no longer about money that the company has but about how much the company contributes to charity and the overall involvement in activities that will show the quality towards their people,” he said.

Mr Thutlwe said the way CSR was implemented differed for each company and country, adding that CSR was a broad concept that addresses many and various topics such as human rights, corporate governance, health and safety, environmental impact and working conditions for people with development.

“The purpose of CSR is to drive the change towards sustainability while on the other hand philanthropy was the desire to promote the welfare of arts expressed especially by the generous donation of money to good causes,” he said.  

Delivering his welcome remarks, the deputy dean of the faculty of social sciences at the University of Botswana, Professor Thaga said Corporate Social Responsibility was the continuing commitment by business to behave ethically and contribute to social development while improving the quality of life of the work force, their families, the community and society at large.

He said in the case of Europe, most companies were keen to talk about social and environmental issues in their annual reports, adding that many argue that complying with CSR guidelines has become a commercial necessity.

“Companies are committed to improving their positive impact on society by publishing a corporate responsibility index which measures the performance of companies in terms of how well they apply CSR values to the business,” he said.

He noted that on the other hand, companies in the United States of America (USA) were not heavily regulated and CSR was deliberately addressed as a regulatory compliance issue, but rather from a moral choice perspective.

Prof. Thaga said the notion of CSR emerged from the USA as a reaction to the rapid growth of capitalism which appeared in the 1870’s, adding that at the beginning of the 20th century, the appearance of large corporations and the era of the ‘robber barons’ who were businessmen who illegally amassed large fortunes led to the development of the antitrust movement and the corporate social contract doctrine. ENDS