JKH wins best corporate citizen award 2007

by Gamini Warushamana

John Keells Holdings (JKH) won the best corporate citizen award 2007 organised by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (CCC) which recognises corporates doing business with social responsibility. The award ceremony was held on Thursday at the Cinnamon Grand.

Nestle Lanka won the first runner-up award and Sampath Bank won the second runner-up award.

Five category awards were presented for environment, community relations, employee relations, customer relations and economic performance categories. The winners are; Holcim Lanka Limited - Environment, Cargills Lanka Limited- Customer and supplier relation, Nestle Lanka Plc - employee relation, John Keells Holdings - Community relation and Sampath Bank - Economic performance.

This was the fourth Best Corporate Citizen award ceremony of the CCC. Special project awards were presented this year for 18 companies for their significant and noble CSR initiatives in the past three years.

The keynote speaker, Director, TATA Sons Ltd India, Dr. Jamshed J Irani said that Corporates should realise that they have a limited life span. TATA is over 100 years' but there are very few companies in the world that are fortunate to continue for over 100 years. Only 2% of companies listed 100 years ago on the New York Stock Exchange survive today.

Dr. Irani said that he prefers to use the term "Corporate Sustainability (CS)" for what corporates spend for community and the society rather than CSR. CSR is a little bit of an alternative for charity. We should consider whether the money spent on CS is a cost or an investment. In TATA we think it as an investment for sustainability. After two or five years that investment will give you returns.

Over the past hundred years TATA feels that spending on society and community is essential. To spend on CS corporates should create wealth. However, a society with educated and well informed people is also needed. Employee, suppliers and customers will trust socially responsible corporates.

Our spending on this has become a very good investment for us and give us very good returns. Finally we have better employees and we have become a low cost producer.

Dr. Irani said that TATA has never been among the top ten corporate list in the world or India because the TATA wealth is in the TATA trust. They are not the personal wealth of the chairman or the directors.

Twelve years ago the Indian Prime Minister Narasingha Rao called the top Indian business people and asked them to spend 1% of their net profit on society. After that meeting we calculated our spending on CS and found that TATA had spent 20% of its net profit in good years and at least 3% in bad years on CS, he said.

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Ten best corporate citizens

Aitken Spence Company

Associated Mortorways Plc

Cargills Lanka Limited

Ceylon Tobacco Limited

Holcim Lanka Limited

John Keells Holdings Plc

Nestle Lanka Plc

Sampath Bank Limited

HSBC

Unilever