The View from the Boardroom - UNDP Trinidad and Tobago

The View from the Boardroom- CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibilityin Trinidad and Tobago

‘The View from the Boardroom’CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibilityin Trinidad and TobagoProject ManagerJens-Ulrich Poppen, Ph.D., Democratic GovernanceProgramme OfficerUNDP Trinidad and Tobago, Curacao, Sint Maarten, Arubaand SurinameProject AssistantsRene Berryman-Sheppard, UNV Programme AssistantKaren Seegobin, UNDP internProject DirectorEdo Stork, Deputy Resident Representative, UNDP Trinidadand Tobago, Curacao, Sint Maarten, Aruba and SurinameAuthorJens-Ulrich Poppen, Ph.D.Editorial BoardDr. Ron Sookram, Director for Corporate Responsibility,Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of BusinessIsele Robinson-Cooper, Social Development ProgrammeOfficer, UNDP Trinidad and Tobago, Curacao,Sint Maarten, Aruba and SurinamePublication Design and ArtworkDesktop Designs & Letters LimitedPrintingEniath’s Printing Company Ltd.United Nations Development ProgrammeTrinidad and Tobago, Suriname, Aruba, Curacaoand Sint MaartenUN House, 3A Chancery Lane, P.O.Box 812Port of Spain, TrinidadTel. +1 868 623 7056www.undp.org.ttThe views expressed in this publication are those of the author andinterviewees and do not necessarioly reflect those of the UnitedNations or UNDP.© 2012 UNDP All Rights Reserved.2

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoContentsForeword................................................................................................................................................................. 4Preface..................................................................................................................................................................... 5Participating CEOs............................................................................................................................................... 6Additional Insights from Business Leaders...................................................................................................... 7Acknowledgements............................................................................................................................................... 8Acronyms................................................................................................................................................................ 8Executive Summary.............................................................................................................................................. 9Definitional Questions – CSR and Sustainability.........................................................................................12Methodology........................................................................................................................................................14Chapter 1..............................................................................................................................................................17CSR in Trinidad and Tobago – Strategic Evolution or Preserving the Status Quo?InterviewSharon Christopher, Deputy CEO, First Citizens Bankon Corporate Ethics, Risk Management and Morality in Business.......................................................30Chapter 2..............................................................................................................................................................37Government, Consumers and Employees – The Drivers of CSRInterviewCharles Percy, CEO Methanex Trinidad and Tobago Ltd.on Sweat Equity, Corporate Volunteerism and the Value of Human Capital......................................44Chapter 3..............................................................................................................................................................49The Third Sector Revisited – Private Sector and Nonprofit PartnershipsChapter 4..............................................................................................................................................................57Managing Human Capital through CSR – The Business Case for Corporate Volunteering3

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoForewordOver the past years, the United Nations DevelopmentProgramme (UNDP) as an international developmentagency has been most vocal in its advocacy of the conceptof Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Trinidad andTobago. Our position on the issue has been always based onour firm conviction that the Private Sector has a key role toplay in matters of national development and that partneringwith companies and business associations should forman integral part of UNDP’s approach towards socialdevelopment and poverty reduction. While governmentfacilitation of CSR and its support for corporate sustainabilitywithin the local business community is an important elementof mainstreaming CSR across sectors and industries – thesigning of a joint project for the development of a nationalCSR Policy between the UNDP and the Ministry of Trade andIndustry (MTI) in February 2012 illustrates the importancethat the Government of Trinidad and Tobago assigns to itsdirect involvement - the extent to which companies havebecome involved in social and community development aswell as environmental conservation depends crucially onthe level of buy-in that CEOs and senior managers exhibitfor the implementation of CSR activities within their owncompanies.This report is the latest publication in a series ofknowledge products through which UNDP has analysed anddocumented important developments in the area of CSR andsustainable management within the national stakeholdercommunity over the past five years. While UNDP jointly withthe then South Trinidad Chamber of Industry and Commerce(STCIC) provided a pioneering situation analysis on CSR inTrinidad and Tobago with its 2008 CSR Mapping Report,subsequent publications such as the ‘Roadmap to CorporateVolunteering – 6 Steps Towards an Employee VolunteerProgramme’ focused on specific facets of the sustainabilitytheme. The opinions, viewpoints and personal experiencesof CEOs will crucially inform their decision-making withrespect to budgetary allocations, integration of sustainabilityissues into overall business strategy and to the utilizationof CSR-specific criteria within the context of individualperformance appraisals to name but a few. The survey andthe interviews conducted amongsenior managers show that whilesome progress has been madesince the publication of the 2008 Mapping Report, theneed for a stronger alignment of CSR with core businessprocesses remains the most formidable challenge forcompanies in Trinidad and Tobago. The continuously strongfocus on charitable giving and philanthropic engagementmakes the lasting “reconciliation of the strict profit motiveand a motive that might be viewed as more altruistic andbeing done to satisfy society” as described in the wordsof bpTT President Norman Christie more difficult. Otherfindings suggest a promising change in attitudes and pointat new avenues for partnering and implementation. Thefact that an overwhelming majority of CEOs welcomes theinvolvement of the government in CSR is an encouragingsign that new forms of public-private partnerships may becoming to fruition in the foreseeable future.At UNDP, we hope that this report will provide usefulinformation about the level of CSR ‘sensitization’ in T&Tboardrooms and generate food for thought and discussionon the broad range of issues that form the basis for theconcept of modern sustainability. Particularly with thenewly gained momentum on the part of the governmentseeking to utilise CSR to increase the attractiveness ofTrinidad and Tobago as an investment destination, aninsight into the thought process of senior businessmen andbusinesswomen on questions of sustainable managementcan only improve the quality of both discourse andconceptual solutions surrounding CSR. This report willmake an important contribution to the ongoing process ofdeveloping a national CSR policy enhancing its researchbase and filling a significant knowledge gap about thethinking of senior managers with regard to business ethics,sustainable entrepreneurial practice and corporate socialinvestment.Dr. Marcia de CastroUN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident RepresentativeUNDP Trinidad and Tobago, Curaçao, Suriname, Aruba andSint Maarten4

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoAdditional Insights from Business LeadersDave RamkissoonEIL GroupErrol Le BlancUnicomerJames DeversLaparkanGillian GolahDFL CaribbeanErnie RossRoss AdvertisingBrian PhilipsMediterranean ShippingGary AboudMode LiveBerry FerdinandBewil Office FurnitureChristian QuesnelResin ConvertersIan ChinapooFirst Caribbean International BankDave AquiJusamcoRikhi RampersadDeloitte & ToucheEric KippsJARICRon MilfordUnipetIndu SharmaGDF SuezJames WilkinsFluor TrinidadDennis EvansCitibankStanley TemproBONSAL CaribbeanAli KhanHilton TrinidadJames SmithMcCann EricksonJohn Soo Ping ChowAon EnergyWainwright ItonT&T Stock ExchangeJennifer KhanCentury 21 Janitorial ServicesOscar PrietoAtlantic LNGWillard P. HarrisCOLFIREDavid AffonsoHILO Food StoresAllan ClovisKariwak VillageAndre JacelyonANSA McAL TobagoEarle BaccusE-IDCOTDaniel ScottAnthony P. ScottJean-Pierre du CoudrayWITCOEdwin H. GoodingEastern Credit UnionCatherine Da SilvaDesktop Designs & LettersJason FreakleyScrip J PrintingKenneth HolderKS Holder ArchitectsSimeon SandifordSANCH Electronics7

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoAcknowledgementsAcronymsThe United Nations Development Programme(UNDP) and the United Nations VolunteersProgramme (UNV) wish to acknowledge thecontributions of all the participants of thisstudy. Without their support this report wouldnot have been possible. UNDP and UNVwould also like to specially thank Mrs. ReneBerryman-Sheppard and Ms Karen Seegobinfor assisting in the planning and preparation ofthe publication. Further thanks go to Dr. RonSookram and Ms Isele Robinson-Cooper forproviding valuable comments on various draftsof the report.ATMCEOCSRFCBMDGsMLSMEMTIAutomated Teller MachineChief Executive OfficerCorporate Social ResponsibilityFirst Citizens Bank LimitedMillennium Development GoalsMinistry of Labour and Small andMicro EnterprisesMinistry of Trade and IndustryNCCNational Carnival CommitteeNGONon-governmental OrganizationSERVOLService Volunteered for ALLSMESmall and Medium Size EnterprisesSTCICSouth Trinidad Chamber of Industryand CommerceTTMATrinidad and Tobago ManufacturersAssociationUNUnited NationsUNVUnited Nations VolunteersProgrammeUNDPUnited Nations DevelopmentProgramme8

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoExecutive SummaryOver the past thirty years, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become anestablished feature in boardrooms across the world. Trinidad and Tobago has notremained unaffected by such developments and the Private Sector’s contributionto social development and environmental programmes has profoundly changedthe developmental landscape between Port of Spain and Sangre Grande, Arimaand San Fernando, Point Fortin and Tunapuna. Similar to its role in increasing thecorporate appeal of CSR in other parts of the world, particularly the larger consumermarkets in North America and Europe, the boardroom also played a crucial rolein driving progress, sensitizing publics and mobilizing workforces in support ofthe cause of sustainability in the English-speaking Caribbean’s strongest economy.Securing buy-in of senior managers, company owners, chairpersons and CEOs forcorporate social outreach activities are crucial pre-requisites for the developmentof durable corporate structures that would facilitate the implementation of CSRprogrammes. Without the backing of senior management for their companies’involvement in CSR-related issues such as social impact investment, employeevolunteerism, charitable giving, civil society partnerships and support for codifiedstandards of corporate ethics, Trinidad and Tobago’s Private Sector would havebeen unlikely to broaden its approach towards defining its relationship with widersociety.The extent to which CSR was practised by T&T-based companies was firstcaptured in 2008 when the UNDP in partnership with the then South TrinidadChamber of Industry and Commerce (STCIC) produced a mapping report thatpainted the following picture of CSR in Trinidad and Tobago:• Focus on Philanthropy, Charitable Giving and Public Relations• Existing programs not aligned with national development goals• Limited involvement of government in the practice of CSR• Limited collaboration with Civil Society• Little evidence of strategic planning• Limited awareness of the business benefits of CSRFour years later, the findings of the CSR Mapping Report provided the backdropfor this CEO report presenting a benchmarking tool that facilitates comparativeanalysis and helps to capture progress as well as regress and stagnation ofmainstreaming sustainability in Trinidad and Tobago. In particular, the questionabout the strategic nature of CSR and its closer and more programmatic alignmentwith a company’s commercial operations featured prominently in both reportsdocumenting the extent to which the business community had moved away fromthe practice of financial hand-outs towards more direct involvement in internaland external forms of CSR. The results of this survey can be summarised asfollows:9

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoStrategy• Little evidence for a substantive shift towards morestrategic forms of CSR: While CSR has undoubtedlybecome a more familiar feature within the local businesscommunity with a high level of acceptance of the ideaand concept behind the practice, the commitmentsmade by senior managers towards corporate socialengagement remain largely philanthropic in nature.More than two-thirds of all respondents namecharitable giving and events sponsorship as the areasthat their CSR outreach was most reflected in.• Continuously strong focus on public relations andreputation management as main drivers of CSR:A further indication of the unchanged philanthropicnature of CSR in Trinidad and Tobago is the fact thatan overwhelming 96.8% of all CEOs interviewed for thereport named brand, trustworthiness and reputationas being among the most important drivers for theirCSR activities. Only 11.4% mentioned increasedcompetitiveness as a motivating factor for their socialengagement.• Strategic planning still remains an underdevelopedtool of managing CSR embraced by only half ofall CEOs: A mere 51.4% of all CEOs interviewed forthe report used a CSR Strategy in their corporateoperations. This suggests a rather modest level ofintegrating CSR activities into the business planningframework. Such relatively weak readiness for strategicplanning somewhat contradicts the assertion made by82.4% of all respondents that CSR was “critical for thefuture success of the business”.• The link between CSR and bottom line performanceremains subject to speculation and guess-workrather than being examined through empiricalresearch: 94.3% of all CEOs went on record as sayingthat their companies have never investigated the nexusbetween CSR and the financial and market performanceof their businesses. The apparent lack of interest inmeasuring the economic impact of CSR makes theevidence-based allocation of resources for corporatesocial investment difficult and throws the strategicnature of CSR further into question.• Reporting on CSR activities has not experiencedany significant improvement: Only 50% of all CEOsinterviewed confirmed that their companies reportedon their sustainability management. This suggests awidespread lack of disclosure and a rather unsatisfactorylevel of transparency and accountability as shareandstakeholders are being left without informationregarding compliance with international standards ofsustainability and ethical behaviour.• Most CEOs do not provide financial incentives tomanage performance of their senior managers inthe area of CSR: Only 14.3% of all CEOs acknowledgedthe strategic importance of CSR and the relevance ofsustainability issues for their company’s commercialsuccess by linking the remuneration of senior managerswith their CSR performance. In other words, raisingone’s company’s public profile as a socially responsiblecorporate citizen by deepening its societal commitmentthrough successful management does not ‘pay off’.• Promoting CSR through supply chain managementis popular in theory but carried out in practice byonly half of all companies: The majority of CEOs(97.1%) have stressed the importance of suppliers andcontractors for the promotion of CSR saying that thelatter should be practised through the entire supplychain. However, being asked if their companies areactively seeking to implement sustainability criteriathrough their supply chain, the number of ‘doers’significantly decreased and only 53.1% of all CEOsreplied in the affirmative.10

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoDrivers• There is broad acceptance by CEOs of governmentinvolvement in CSR: Two-thirds of all CEOs (75.8%)embrace the idea of government intervention drivingCSR. This suggests a certain change in the traditionallydominant view of the business community that CSRshould be based on the voluntary commitment ofcompanies given that government intervention canlead to both incentivisation and the imposition oflegally binding regulatory frameworks. Acceptance ofgovernment involvement includes the developmentof a national CSR policy, something that 88.6% ofrespondents would welcome.• CEOs are keenly aware that often their CSRcommitments and their societal outreach makesthem corporate actors that effectively deliversocial services previously provided by government:Business leaders are mindful of their role as privatesector entities involved in social development whenassisting the government with the delivery of basicservices to vulnerable groups in society. 68.6% of CEOsthink it to be a correct assertion that they are ‘doing thegovernment’s job’ by getting engaged in CSR.• In the eyes of CEOs, consumer attitudes in Trinidadand Tobago are, compared to other countries, lesseffective in bringing about a stronger complianceof businesses with ethical principles: Only 48.6%of CEOs think that a company’s social reputation is anincreasingly important factor in influencing consumers’purchasing decisions. Such cautious attitude towardsthe potential pressure generated by consumers is alsoreflected in the 85.3% of all CEOs who believe that socialand environmental concerns would influence consumerbehaviour to a lesser extent than in other markets. Andonly 11.4% of respondents named consumers to beamong the main drivers for CSR.• CEOs believe that the workforce is an essentialdriver for CSR that would prompt them as seniorcorporate decision-makers to become active inthe field of sustainability: The focus of CEOs andcompany owners is firmly on their employees whenbeing asked to identify the most important factorsunderlying their ‘boardroom’ decision-making onCSR. 71.4% of all interviewees mentioned the area ofemployee engagement – comprising internal CSR andcorporate volunteering – as a top consideration in theway their decisions on CSR activities are being made.Civil Society• The voluntary and non-governmental sector remainsrelatively weak in its attractiveness as a partnerfor private companies in the implementation ofCSR programmes: Only 37.1% of all respondentsmentioned Civil Society as a key driver for CSR inTrinidad and Tobago. Interviews with CEOs haveshown that corporate support for NGOs exists but thatlimitations in the organizational capacity of nonprofitorganizations and their often significant overhead costshas led to a situation in which only a few NGOs havebecome regular partners for private businesses.Corporate Volunteering• The personal commitment and previous involvementof CEOs in activities of corporate volunteerismdoes not necessarily translate into a greater degreeof ‘professionalization’ of volunteer management:The majority of CEOs have previously volunteeredas private individuals (85.7%) as well as in their roleas employees before joining the ‘boardroom’ (91.2%).This level of personal involvement would suggest thatthe majority of companies in Trinidad and Tobago hadestablished a formal corporate volunteer programme asa consequence. However, only 37.1% of all CEOs saidthat their companies operated an official employeevolunteer scheme.11

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoDefinitional Questions– CSR and SustainabilityThere are as many definitions of theconcept CSR as there are authorsand analysts. Approaches towardsexplaining and defining the ideaof corporate societal commitmentunderwent multiple adjustments andchanges throughout past decades andthe advent of conservationist principlesand environmental concerns broadenedthe thinking about the Private Sector’scommitment to the public realm.Originating in North America andbeing dominated by U.S.-based authorsand practitioners, CSR in its early formswas described as the “obligations ofbusinessmen to pursue those policies,to make those decisions or to followthose lines of action which are desirablein terms of the objectives and values ofour society”. 1 And other authors haveonly intensified the focus on issues ofsocial development when they assertthat “in its broadest sense, corporatesocial responsibility represents aconcern with the needs and goals ofsociety which goes beyond the merelyeconomic. Insofar as the businesssystem as it exists today can onlysurvive in an effectively functioningfree society, the corporate socialresponsibility movement representsa broad concern with business’s rolein supporting and improving thesocial order. 2 More recent definitionsrefer directly to a company’sstakeholders whose interests shouldbe a determining factor for corporatebehaviour well beyond mere bottomline considerations. For example, theWorld Business Council for SocialDevelopment has defined the conceptas “the continuous commitmentby business to behave ethically andcontribute to sustainable developmentwhile improving the quality of life ofthe workforce and their families aswell as of the local community andsociety at large”. Many definitionsof CSR are emphasising almostexclusively the voluntary commitmentof corporations as free agents and donot include anything mandatory thatmay result from legislative and otherregulatory frameworks. The historicalevolution of CSR and the myriad ofdefinitions seem to confirm legendarycorporate responsibility theorist DowVotaw’s view that “the term [socialresponsibility] is a brilliant one; itmeans something, but not always thesame thing, to everybody. To some itconveys the idea of legal responsibilityor liability; to others, it means sociallyresponsible behaviour in an ethicalsense […] many simply equate itwith a charitable contribution”. 3 Theobvious terminological shortcomingof the label ‘CSR’ is its narrow focuson the socio-economic dimension ofcorporate outreach addressing pressingsocietal concerns. The equally andinterconnected issue of environmentalprotection with its dominant topicalframework of climate change is notadequately reflected in the choiceof CSR as the name for companyengagement in the non-market specificenvironment. Instead, the often citedmodel of the ‘Triple Bottom Line’appears to fill the conceptual gap moreadequately including the environmentalperformance as well as the social1 Howard R. Bowen, ‘Social Responsibilities of the Businessman’, New York, Harper & Row 1953, quoted in: Archie B. Carroll, ‘Corporate Social Responsibility – Evolution of a Definitional Construct’,Business and Society, Vol.38, No.3, p.270.2 Richard Eells and Clarence Walton, ‘Conceptual Foundations of Business’, quoted in ibid, p.278.3 Dow Votaw, Genius Becomes Rare’, California Management Review, Spring 1973, Vol.15, p.16.12

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and Tobagoinvolvement of corporate entities in its structure. Additionalconceptual approaches have gained in popularity in later yearssuch as Corporate Citizenship, Corporate Social Performance(CSP) and Social Impact Investment but are largely dealingwith similar aspects of the same thematic portfolio eventhough they clearly go beyond the basic notion of enlightenedself-interest.Increasingly, companies have adopted the label of‘sustainability’ for the entirety of their non-commercialobligations, activities and commitments. Sustainability refersmore broadly to the various elements that ensure the longtermviability of businesses such as issues of anti-corruption,human rights, labour relations, environmental protection andbusiness ethics as part of supply chain management as well assupport for social development in fenceline communities. Atthe same time, the definition of corporate sustainability makesmore specific reference to the area of human development andfinds its origin in the 1987 Report of the World Commissionon Environment and Development (‘Brundtland Report’)which links the goal of poverty eradication and the urgencyof addressing global underdevelopment to the need for largescaleand long-term economic growth in order to “meet theneeds and aspirations of the present without compromisingthe ability to meet those of the future”. 4 While this surveycontinues to use the term ‘CSR’ in its analysis of seniormanagers’ attitudes and thinking on issues of public concernand societal involvement of companies, it includes theenvironmental dimension of such concerns and is thereforeguided by the question about the full extent of corporate impacton society. With that it positions itself in close proximity tothe 2011 CSR policy of the European Commission in whichCSR is defined as “the responsibility of enterprises for theirimpacts on society”. 5 In examining CSR among CEOs inTrinidad and Tobago, this report looks at the role of businesswithin the framework of national development and seeks tointegrate issues of community development, environmentalconservation, human rights, working, industrial relations,consumer interest and corporate governance into its definitionof corporate responsibility thereby roughly reflecting theprinciples of the U.N. Global Compact. 64 http://www.un-documents.net/wced-ocf.htm5 http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sustainable-business/files/csr/new-csr/act_en.pdf6 In October 2012, the Trinidad and Tobago Bureau of Standards (TTBS) officially adopted the ISO 26000 non-certifiable CSR standard as the guidance framework for sustainability issues for thelocal market place. In its own definitional approach, the ISO 26000 describes “the essential characteristic of social responsibility” as “the willingness of an organization to incorporate social andenvironmental considerations in its decision-making and be accountable for the impacts of its decisions and activities on society and the environment.”13

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoMethodologyThe CEO report on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and Tobago wasconducted over a six month period between April and September 2011. The targetsample included 50 CEOs with questionnaires and interview requests sent out toa total of 142 companies. This meant that in order to achieve the target sample,over-sampling of more than 100% was necessary. A total of 53 CEOs participatedin the survey and interviews. The majority of CEOs – 62.9% - were in their seniorposition for more than six years and only 37% had served for five or less years atthe time of the interview.Since when do you lead thecompany as CEO?22.9%37.1%20.0%20.0%5 years or less6-10 years10-15 years16-20 yearsThe companies selected for this study represent a comprehensive blend of eightindustrial sectors. They are:1. Consumer Goods and Services2. Infrastructure an d Transportation3. Banking and Insurance4. Energy5. Professional Services6. Electronics7. ChemicalsThe participating companies were chosen from among both Small and MediumEnterprises (SMEs) as well as from the group of larger national and multinationalcompanies. Despite its predominant focus on private companies, four CEOsrepresented companies that are either wholly or partially owned by the state. Thisdecision was made in recognition of their importance for the national economy.The study used the categorisation of the Trinidad and Tobago Ministry of Labourand Small and Micro Enterprises (MLSME) to determine company size. This localtemplate was chosen in order to reflect the specific structure of the local PrivateSector which, based on total numbers of employees, is dominated by SMEs.14

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoMicro Enterprises Small Enterprises Medium Enterprises Large EnterprisesOwner/Manager Owner/Manager Owner/Manager Owner/Manager1-5 employees 6-25 employees 26-50 employees 51+ employeesAssets: Assets: Assets: Assets:< $250,000 > $250,000 – >$1,500,000 > $5,000,000< $1,500,000 - $250,000 – > $5,000,000 > $10,000,000< $ 5,000,000 - < $10,000,000The methodology used to conduct the study was acombination of qualitative and quantitative analysis basedon a) 53 face-to-face interviews with CEOs, Deputy CEOsand Managing Directors b) a questionnaire comprising 37questions. This questionnaire included a sections regardingcompany data, and dealt with a broad range of sustainabilityaspects such as charitable giving, CSR and human resourcemanagement, drivers for CSR and corporate volunteering toname but a few.Based on the classification of the MLSME, 62.9% of allCEOs participating in the survey led companies in the ‘large’segment followed by 22.9% of small companies and 14.3% ofmedium size companies. Almost half of all CEOs presidedover companies with more than TT$100 million annualrevenues (of which 23.5% had a revenue earning capacity ofmore than TT$500 million) followed by 17.6% with revenuebetween TT$20 and TT$50 million and 14.7% with revenuesfalling within the TT$5 to TT$20 million bracket.In which sector does your company operate?I n which sector does your company operate?Communications8.6%Media & 0.0%Electronics2.9%Health & Life 0.0%Utilities 0.0%Professional22.9%Energy11.4%Banking and20.0%Automotive 0.0%Chemicals2.9%Infrastructure8.6%Consumer22.9%0.0% 5.0% 10.0% 15.0% 20.0% 25.0%Approximate Annual Revenues (Trinidad and Tobago)Approximate Annual Revenues (Trinidad and Tobago)In which of the following categories does your company fall?In which of the following categories does your company fall?> TT$500millionTT$100million - TTTT$50million - TTTT$20million - TTTT$5million - TTTT$1.5million - TTTT$25,000- TT$1.55.9%5.9%8.8%14.7%17.6%0.0% 5.0% 10.0% 15.0% 20.0% 25.0%23.5%23.5%Large (51+employees)Medium(26-50employees)Small (6-25employees)Micro (1-5employees)0.0%14.3%22.9%62.9%0.0% 20.0% 40.0% 60.0% 80.0%15

“Corporate Responsibility is twofold: On the one hand, companies should be concerned withenriching the environment within which they exist. And by that I mean that from a moral point of viewit is obligatory to fertilise the soil in which your tree is growing. On the other hand, it seems to makesense to be concerned about people that are supporting your enterprise, so that it would be foolishnot to be aware or concerned about those persons on whom you depend.”Gregory Aboud, PresidentDowntown Owner’s and Merchants Association (DOMA)16

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoCHAPTER 1CSR in Trinidad and Tobago – Strategic Evolution or Preserving the Status Quo?CSR in Trinidad and Tobago –Strategic Evolution orPreserving the Status Quo?CHAPTER 1In 2008, a pioneering study on the practice of CSR in Trinidad and Tobagopublished jointly by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) andthe STCIC (now Energy Chamber) found that in their social commitments themajority of T&T-based companies focused predominantly on the philanthropicmodality of Charitable Giving, something that suggested a strong emphasis onreputation management through public relations and a ‘hand-out’ mentalityunderlying local CSR efforts. At the same time, the research produced only scarceevidence of any strategic integration of CSR principles and considerations intocompanies’ business processes and into their overall planning framework. Theauthors of the study concluded that “many programmes and projects are fundedon an ad hoc basis resulting in a lack of sustainability and alignment with thecompanies’ business plans.” 7Such findings were not confined toTrinidad and Tobago’s Private Sectorbut characterised other Caribbeanmarkets as well. 8 Arguably, CSR hasbecome an increasingly familiarfeature of companies competing inthe local market place. CEOs acrosssectors and industries representingmultinational, larger national as wellas Small and Medium Size Enterprises(SMEs) have embraced the notionthat in today’s corporate world,sustainable business practices and acommitment to the public commongood have become a permanentbehavioural reality. The launch ofthe ISO 26000 by the Trinidad andTobago Bureau of Standards (TTBS)in October 2011 is a case in point forillustrating such growing convictionand signaled the readiness of thelocal market environment to adoptinternationally recognised standardsof corporate responsibility. Everysingle CEO interviewed for this reportacknowledged that businesses have aresponsibility for contributing towardssocial wellbeing and environmentalsustainability. Seeking to transcendthe strict separation between themoral dimension of wealth creationand the commercial interest in profitmaximisation, Norman Christie,President of bpTT uses the concept ofSustainability to explain his reasoningbehind the integration of CSR into hismanagerial decision-making process:“I like the idea of long-term thinking.Truly realising what long-term meanspromotes a reconciliation of the strictprofit motive and a motive that mightbe viewed as more altruistic and beingdone to satisfy society. The point thatI hold is that the two motives canconverge if a person thinks about thelong-term. When I define ‘sustainable’I define it actually in a way thatcauses the convergence of the longtermsurvivability of a company orenterprise and people and the planet.”7 Mapping Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and Tobago – Private Sector and Sustainable Development’, UNDP/STCIC Mapping Project 2007, p.8 The Jamaica Employers’ Federation highlighted a similar focus of its member companies on philanthropy and charitable giving in its report ‘Corporate Social Responsibility in Jamaica 2007’.See also Fabio Balboni, Wayne Charles-Soverall, Brigette McDonald Levy, ‘New Perspectives on Corporate Social Responsibility in the Caribbean’, Caribbean Development Review, No.1, p.27.17

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoCHAPTER 1CSR in Trinidad and Tobago – Strategic Evolution or Preserving the Status Quo?companies. Even more CEOs – 91.4%- described CSR as central to the longtermeconomic success of a companyrather than being peripheral in itsrelevance for business operations. Thismay be interpreted as an indicationfor the growing conviction by seniormanagers and business ownersthat an active engagement in CSRactivities has a considerable potentialfor creating significant business valueby opening new markets, tappinginto new segments of consumers anddeveloping new product lines. Or it maybe seen as an illustration of the beliefthat contributing towards the buildingof social capital in communities acrossthe country creates and maintainsthe conditions for corporate successby safeguarding investments,developing the local workforce andIs CSR central to the long-term economic successof a company rather than being a marginal concepton the periphery of business operations?8.6%91.4%YesNoproviding social infrastructure. DaveRamkissoon, CEO of the EIL Groupof Companies, points out the nexusbetween social performance andcommercial value when he says that“when we look at CSR, the wordthat comes to mind is connectivity,connecting to the whole picture,identifying how it plays an integralpart in defining what success really is“I am on the board of the United Way and one of thethings that you quickly realize is that you need to getto the CEO level to basically drive down the process. Ifthere is CEO buy-in the staff would usually follow suit.”Dennis Evans, Managing DirectorCitibank Trinidad and Tobagoas an entrepreneur and as a businessentity. To become successful withoutCSR is a misnomer. CSR creates anopportunity to multiply value andwealth, not only directly in yourbusiness but in the wider community.”Of course, the ‘critical’ nature of CSRas perceived by CEOs may also bedue to a growing awareness on thepart of the general public and a moreenlightened consumer ‘mindset’ thatcompanies will observe internationalhuman rights standards, operate inan environmentally conscious mannerand aid their fenceline communitiesthat in turn raises an expectation thatcompliance with such behaviouralprinciples will ultimately have apositive impact on the bottom line.While there are good reasons to treadcarefully with quick assertions aboutan easily measurable causal nexusbetween the degree of a company’sCSR commitments and its commercialperformance, it is undoubtedly thecase that “there are circumstances andincreasingly so, under which corporateresponsibility is in the best economicinterests of a particular company.” 10Such general belief in the profitspecificrelevance of ‘doing the rightthing’ has become widespread amongmembers of the business communityin Trinidad and Tobago thus providingsome of the necessary elements formaking the business case for CSR“I think as corporatecitizens we have adistinct responsibilityto make sure thatthe environment inwhich we operate iswholesome, we treateverybody fairly andif we do that thereis the possibilityof sustainability.Other than that it allimplodes and nobodywins.”Wainright Iton, CEOTrinidad and Tobago StockExchange10 N. Craig Smith, ‘Consumers as Drivers of Corporate Responsibilty’, Centre for Marketing Working Paper, London Business School, March 2007, p.3.19

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoCHAPTER 1CSR in Trinidad and Tobago – Strategic Evolution or Preserving the Status Quo?“As part of our businessmodel ‘each one teachone’ our staff is engagedin outreach programmeswhere you go and teachpeople about financialliteracy, so it’s alsocapacity building, it’salso to provide peoplewith information in termsof starting their ownbusiness. It is businessrelated,it is part of whatwe do and it is thereforea little different from thegiving of donations andcharity.”Edwin H. Gooding, CEOEastern Credit Unionrather than embracing sustainablepractices on moral grounds only.Do you believe that the management of CSRissue will be critical for the future success of yourbusiness?17.6%82.4%YesNoHowever, despite the broad acceptanceof CSR among senior managers inTrinidad and Tobago and their declaredcommitment to the public commongood, the question remains if since thepublication of the 2008 STCIC/UNDPCSR Mapping Report, the decidedlyphilanthropic character of companies’social outreach and environmentalengagement has changed towards theadoption of a more strategic focus inorder to generate truly sustainablesynergy effects on improving thecountry’s societal fabric. After all, it isone thing to express one’s belief in therelevance of CSR for the bottom lineand to agree with the need for morestrategic CSR but quite another tosubsequently act upon such expressedconvictions. The former belongs tothe realm of perceptions and attitudesand may suffer from what is knownas social desirability bias, the latterpertains to actual behaviour. Ashift towards strategic CSR wouldmark an important milestone in thetransformative process of replacingthe prioritisation of short-termcommercial profits and the strongemphasis on shareholder valuethrough a more holistic managementapproach in favour of establishingethical legitimacy in the eyes of thegeneral public, After all, it has beenrightly pointed out that “while it is anaccepted practice for companies to usephilanthropy as a means of improvingtheir branding and positioning, it doesnot necessarily amount to an effectiveCSR which is about a company’slong-term footprint on society”. 11 Inparticular, the strategic alignmentof CSR activities and core businessprocesses and the targeted utilizationof what Dan O’Brien has called‘socially anchored competencies’ offirms constitutes an area that hasthe potential to directly contributetowards the company’s competitiveadvantage. 12The quantitative results of theCEO survey suggest that the ideaof what might be called ‘corporatebenevolence’ through the practice offinancial ‘gap filling’ and donationsstill prevails with 96.8% of allrespondents naming the area ofCharitable Giving as the activity thattheir CSR commitment was reflectedin most often. This was followed by83.9% of CEOs active in the area ofsponsorship of campaigns and otherpublic events and 61.3% engagingin employee volunteering for thepurpose of community development.The strong focus on donations andcharitable activities deflects fromthe possibility of forging moretangible and sustainable developmentpartnerships and suggests that thelocal market and wider society stillsuffer countless missed opportunitiesfor a more substantial and proactiveinvolvement of commerciallyoperating entities in societal affairs.On the other hand, the active role of11 Sookram, Ron and Surendra, Arjoon, ‘Corporate Social Responsibility in the Caribbean Community – Lessons from Trinidad and Tobago’, Advances in Management, Vol.3, No.12, December 2010,p.19.12 Dan O’Brien, Integrating Corporate Social Responsibility with Competitive Strategy’, The Centre for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College, p.3.20

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoCHAPTER 1CSR in Trinidad and Tobago – Strategic Evolution or Preserving the Status Quo?“Being successful doesn’t just mean to be able to build askyscraper or that you are able to show that you have hundreds ofmillions of dollars in profit. It also can be the company’s ability toaffect the people around it whether they are employees, whetherthey are the communities around them or whether they areparticular groups that the company wants to affiliate itself with.”John Soo Ping, CEOAONemployee volunteers in companies’CSR portfolios as documentedin the more than 60% of surveyparticipants responding positively isan encouraging sign that corporatesocial engagement in Trinidad andTobago has clearly become morepro-active, less reliant on financialdonations and increasingly employeefocused.At the same time, readingsuch findings against the results of the2009/2010 UNV Survey on CorporateVolunteerism which found onlyone-third of all companies surveyedto be operating a formal volunteerprogramme, suggests that corporateIf yes, was this commitment reflected in:83.9%96.8%61.3%Employee volunteering in communitiesCharitable GivingSponsorship of campaigns, eventsvolunteer activities remain largelyunstructured, organised on an adhocbasis and without a long-termperspective that would underline theirconceptualisation. 13Defining the business case for CSR,71.4% of all CEOs mentioned Brand,Trustworthiness and Reputation astheir most important consideration inthe way they determined expectationsabout the effect that CSR would haveon their companies’ commercialperformance. Such strong focuson image, public perception andexternal appearance, however, doesnot suggest a shift towards morestrategic configurations of CSR butrather an approach towards corporateresponsibility that continues to equatecompany engagement in the socialarena with the work of corporatecommunication departments.Such approach seeks to primarilyensure high visibility of a company’scorporate profile in the public andconsumer sphere through activitiesand interventions that can be easilyintegrated in a company’s publicrelations portfolio. This type of CSR asreputation management has focusedtraditionally on acts of charitablegiving and philanthropic engagementswith only few signs of aligning CSRactivities with core business processes.13 ‘Corporate Volunteerism - Developing a Business Culture of Caring in Trinidad and Tobago’, UNDP Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, Aruba, Curacao and Sint Maarten 2011.21

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoCHAPTER 1CSR in Trinidad and Tobago – Strategic Evolution or Preserving the Status Quo?“CSR affects yourcorporate image. To theextent that your corporateimage that is out there ispositive then one wouldexpect there to be sometype of benefit fromthe sales perspectivethrough support fromthe communities. It istherefore a good businessdecision as it creates apositive corporate imageand that should lead tomore people supportingyour company.”Errol Le Blanc, CEOUnicomerSecondly, in overseeing theirrespective CSR programmes andbudgets, 60% of all CEOs mentionedthe criteria of Employee Motivationand Team-Building in defining thebusiness case for sustainability action.This result reflects positively on theprogress seemingly made in the area ofinternal CSR and in raising awarenessabout the business benefits of differentforms of employee engagement suchas corporate volunteerism. Ratherthan seeing investment in employeerecognition, fair labour practices andWhat are the most important considerations forhow you define the Business case for CSR?11.4%25.7%60.0%71.4%Brand, Trustworthiness and ReputationEmployee Motivation and Team-BuildingIncreased competitivenessLicense to operate in communitiesvoluntary participation of staff incommunity development activities asa financial burden on the company,an increasing number of managershave come to appreciate CSR as away to strengthen competitiveness,reduce operational costs andincrease productivity as a result ofimprovements in staff motivation andsolidified team structures. Thirdlyanother important filter throughwhich CEOs assess the value thatCSR can add to the commercialsuccess and market of the criterionof obtaining a License to Operate inCommunities. Such emphasis on theimportance of securing social accessto local communities highlightsthe ‘environment gatekeeper’ and‘peacemaker’ function that corporateinvolvement in the developmentof fenceline communities has formany industries and business types.Recognising the license to operate as amain element of the CSR business casecan be seen as an acknowledgementby local businesses of the crucialimportance of communal buy-in asit relates to approving and acceptingtheir presence and operations on theground. As one executive has put it:“It is this concern about the operatingenvironment, and a firm’s license tooperate which provides much of theimpetus for many corporations […]to undertake a broader role in societalaffairs.” 14Securing community support forcommercial operations has thepotential to help boardrooms,particularly those of multinationalcompanies and their local subsidiariesto reduce the costs associated withpossible delays in production andextraction caused by social activism,various forms of civil unrest andcommunity resistance againstcorporate investment and timeconsuminglegal battles. As such,it increasingly seen as a tool for riskmitigation. And finally, 11.4% of allCEOs interviewed for this reportmentioned Increased Competitivenessas an important feature of theCSR business case. Such firm-levelcompetitiveness gains through CSRmay be achieved in the realms ofcosts savings as well as throughvalue creation in the fields of humanresources, customer relations,innovation and risk and reputationmanagement. 15 The relatively lownumber of CEOs whose thinkingabout the commercial relevance ofCSR is guided by considerations ofgaining a competitive advantage14 Dr. Gary Dirks, ‘CSR – A View from BP’, Speech delivered at the CSR Forum, held at the School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, China, April 2004.15 See European Competitiveness Report 2008, pp. 107-116.22

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoCHAPTER 1CSR in Trinidad and Tobago – Strategic Evolution or Preserving the Status Quo?“If, instead, corporations were to analyse their prospects for socialresponsibility using the same frameworks that guide their corebusiness choices, they would discover that CSR can be much morethan a cost, a constraint, or a charitable deed – it can be a source ofopportunity, innovation and competitive advantage.”Michael Porter and Mark Kramerthrough the integration of social andenvironmental principles into theiroperational frameworks seems to pointat a persistent belief that sustainablepractices are not providing a hardtool for succeeding in the marketplacebut merely a soft instrument witha positive effect only on corporatereputation and community relations.Among those CEOs in Trinidad andTobago that recognise the connectionbetween CSR and competitiveness,some associated such convictionwith a fundamental shift in howstakeholders treated with the conceptof corporate responsibility. Ali Khan,Managing Director of the HiltonTrinidad, explained: “I have seenmajor changes over the past sevenyears. CSR almost became somethingof a fashion. Sustainability becameyour competitive advantage, how youDoes your company hav a CSR strategy?48.6%51.4%YesNowere responsibly behaving towardsthe environment, towards the workers,your vendors, your suppliers and howyou were able to show that you havewhat it takes to be responsible towardsgood causes.”While philanthropic approaches inthe practice of CSR in Trinidad andTobago continue to play a dominantrole, more than half of all CEOs in thissurvey said that their company utiliseda CSR strategy in its operations(51.4%). Among the elements thatstrategic planning frameworks forCSR would traditionally entail arenonprofit partnerships, sponsorshipsand financial donations, reportingrequirements, corporate governance,community investment and employeeengagement. This result does notsuggest much improvement over thepast few years in terms of a strongeralignment of core business processeswith CSR activities (‘Strategic CSR’)when read against the 2008 CSRMapping Report which found that30% of all companies had not focusedon such an alignment while 70% werein fact operating within some sort ofstrategic sustainability framework.Furthermore, having a CSR strategydoes not necessarily mean alignmentof business and sustainability portfolioas these strategies may and oftendo exist in isolation without beinginterconnected. One of the reasonsfor the problem of misalignmentof CSR and business and for thepersistently strong emphasis on cashgrants, material donations and theirpublic relations effects can be foundin the phenomenon of ‘distributiveoverstretch’ which means that acompany seeks to support a myriad ofsocial causes with an only limited CSRbudget. This approach of ‘handingout to all and sundry’ is often basedon an eclectic choice of causes andbeneficiaries without paying sufficientattention to the company’s competitivecompetencies when seeking to satisfyexpectations of a maximum numberof aid recipients. In such a scenario,no strategic choices for corporatesocial investment are being madeand no prioritisation of allocatedresources is taking place. The abilityto document, highlight and ultimatelymeasure the economic impact of CSRand thereby illustrate the relevance ofsocial engagement for the bottom linedetermines the conceptual solidity ofthe business case. Arguably one of themost challenging aspects of CSR thatvery few companies in Trinidad andTobago have tried to investigate is toestablish a causal nexus between theirsocial investment and their financialperformance. According to the survey,the overwhelming majority of CEOs– 94.3% - have never undertakencompany-internal analyses of the oftenclaimed link between CSR and thecompany’s competitive performancein the market.23

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoCHAPTER 1CSR in Trinidad and Tobago – Strategic Evolution or Preserving the Status Quo?Case StudyWe started our journey with that home byentering into a tripartite relationship with thestate and the church. What we brought to thetable was an ability to do things so we firstencouraged just to give, give some money. Butwhen we looked at the state of affairs theremore than money was required. The state ofthe facility was just totally unacceptable, itwas a decrepit facility, it shouldn’t have beenhousing children and the administration of thefacility required improvement. We thereforeacquired the land, we demolished the oldbuidings and rebuilt the entire facility intoa modern facility. We project managed, wemade sure that capital was spent efficiently,we project managed large plant facilities sothat was a core competency that we broughtto the table. And then we encouraged anemployee to be an active board member andset out to look at what was good governancefor the home to make sure it was properlygoverned and that there were controls. Thenwe partnered with the Church to make surethat they were providing the care givers, thatthere was appropriate training, appropriatedevelopment etc. We lobbied the governmentfor subventions to make sure that they weredoing their part. We became a prod to thegovernment and used our corporate leversto get them to do what they needed to do.We have a clear vision of where we want toget to when we partner and what our endstate is and then we set up our activities ina methodical and well planned way to get tothat end state.”Eugen Tiah, CEOPhoenix Gas Park Processors Ltd.Have you ever undertaken company-internalanalysis regarding the link between CSR andfinancial and market performance?94.3%5.7%YesNoTheoretically, increasing profitsthrough socially responsible actioncould take different forms. Forexample, corporate volunteerprogrammes could lead to improvedstaff morale which in turn wouldcause an increase in productivitylevels. Another example of a causalchain leading to financial gains wouldlie in the area of ethically producedand traded products with its impacton consumer behaviour and consumerchoice. The latter is often informedby the adherence of corporations toethical norms and standards in thesourcing of its raw materials and themanufacturing and distribution of itsgoods. If and when such consumerattitudes – ethical consumerism- translate effectively into actualpurchasing decisions and thereforeconstitute a behavioural reality, thecompany will commercially benefitthrough increased sales.Reporting on corporate sustainabilityactivities is another important featureof strategic CSR. In their 2008 STCIC/UNDP CSR Mapping Report, theauthors concluded that “apart fromlarge companies from the Energy24

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoCHAPTER 1CSR in Trinidad and Tobago – Strategic Evolution or Preserving the Status Quo?and Related Industries sector andFinance and Real Estate sectors, thereis generally a lack of disclosure as itpertains to reporting and accountingfor social and environmentalprogrammes and other CSR-relatedactivities. 16 As far as reportingon their social and environmentaloutput in addition to their economicperformance is concerned – somethingthat is sometimes labelled ‘TripleBottom Line Reporting’ or ‘IntegratedReporting’ 17 - only 50% of all CEOsinterviewed in Trinidad and Tobagoconfirmed the use of such reportingtools. The findings of another recentstudy specifically examining the levelsof corporate governance disclosureconfirm such ‘modest’ reportingprofile. 18 Reporting on CSR activitiesand performance serves a number ofpurposes. It provides vital informationon a company’s annual sustainabilityrecord to workforce, investors,customers, government officials, civilsociety while increasing transparencyand accountability. Regular andcomprehensive reporting on keyIs your company reporting on its CSRactivities?50.0%50.0%YesNoCSR criteria helps to demonstratethat the principles of ethicalbusiness practices and responsiblemanagement are seen by managers asmore than just corporate ‘lip service’and that companies deliver on theircommitments as initially set out intheir business and communicationplans and as conveyed to thegeneral public in advertisementsand marketing campaigns. As such,reporting is an important instrumentto assure stakeholding individualsand organisations about a company’sdetermination to adhere to nationaland international standards, normsand rules and to build trust aroundits corporate image and identity.The absence of regular sustainabilityreporting from the Private Sectorsuggests that CEOs have still not fullygrasped or accepted the strategicvalue and bottom-line relevance ofCSR. In many other markets bothemerging and Western-industrial,international reporting frameworksand documentation guidelinessuch as the UN Global Compact’sCommunication on Progress process,the Global Reporting Initiative, theAccountAbility 1000 Standard, theFTSE4 Good Index and the SocialAccountability SA 8000 Standard havebecome widely used and accepted aidsfor presenting facts and supplyinginformation regarding companies’sustainability performance. Disclosurewithin such frameworks goessignificantly beyond a mere listingof projects instead containing dataregarding strategy, managementsystems and performance indicatorsas well as with respect to stakeholderexpectations. They seek to highlightand measure the impact that acompany’s social and environmentalinvestment has made in communitiesand the information contained in suchreports is often quality-controlled andverified through third party assurance.The relatively weak state of CSRreporting in Trinidad and Tobagowith only half of all CEOs interviewedconfirming any kind of disclosuremeans that the corporate governanceremains a significant challenge in thecountry’s boardrooms.Even less common in Trinidad andTobago boardrooms is the practiceof acknowledging the strategicimportance of CSR issues, principlesand objectives by including a linkbetween individual performance withregards to social and environmentalindicators and the remuneration ofmanagers including that of CEOs intoa company’s overall business strategy.If understood as a contribution tocorporate value creation and to thelong-term survivability of a companyin the marketplace, managerialperformance in the environmentaland social realm should arguablydetermine levels of executiveremuneration as much as bottom-linedelivery.Is the remuneration of your senior managers linkedto CSR performance?85.7%14.3%YesNoAsked about the link between theircompanies’ remuneration policies andthe CSR-relevant performance of theirsenior managers, only 14.3% of allCEOs confirmed such a connection.16 See CSR Mapping Report, p.viii.17 See for example the Connected Reporting Framework of the Prince of Wales’ Accounting for Sustainability project www.accountingforsustainability.org18 Using the Experts on International Standards of Accounting and Reporting (ISAR) as a basis for its investigation and sampling a total of 31 large companies listed on the Trinidad and Tobago StockExchange, the report finds that “the average enterprise from the Trinidad and Tobago sample to be disclosing less than half of the items in the ISAR benchmark”. It stresses that “while the samplehas relatively high rates of disclosure for a few topics […] with most companies exceeding the relatively few disclosure requirements of Trinidad and Tobago rules, the overall level of disclosureremains low compared to other emerging markets”, in: ‘Corporate Governance Disclosure in Trinidad and Tobago – A Case Study by Syntegra Change Architects of Trinidad and Tobago’, p.5;Paper presented to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Intergovernmental Working Group of Experts on International Standards of Accounting and Reporting, producedunder the overall direction of Dr. Axel Kravatzky25

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoCHAPTER 1CSR in Trinidad and Tobago – Strategic Evolution or Preserving the Status Quo?“We have a fairly rigorouspre-qualification process.We certainly do a lot inensuring that our goodssuppliers and our serviceproviders meet certainstandards or otherwisethey won’t do businesswith us. We have clearlydefined business ethics,we have declarations thatsuppliers have to make,we do investigations onour own depending onthe contractor or serviceprovider that we aredealing with.”Eugen Tiah, CEOPhoenix Park Gas ProcessorsLtd.For some industries such as thefinancial services sector, an importantaspect of CSR-driven compensation isthe area of risk management and itsimplications for potentially damagingeffects on corporate reputation. Thedevelopment of CSR-specific keyShould CSR be practised throughout the entiresupply chain?2.9%97.1%YesNoperformance indicators (KPIs) in thisarea could serve as an example for otherindustries to integrate CSR targets intoindividual performance assessments,something that requires the settingof measurable targets. Companiesthat practise strategic CSR areperceptible to the dynamics, demandsand pressures generated throughoutthe entire supply chain. In the wordsof Berry Ferdinand, ManagingDirector of Bewil & Company Ltd,his own business ethics was cruciallyinformed by a change of thinking andentrepreneurial practise on the part ofhis supply chain environment and hisbusiness partners: “We were involvedin the representation of companiesthat demanded that we took note of allthe CSR-specific requirements in themarketplace. The whole landscape interms of supplying services changedand our business partners demandedthat we pay a little more attentionto things like staff welfare or that wepay attention to the environment. Sogradually we learned that to stay inbusiness you needed to fall in line andyou also needed to be concerned abouta little bit more than just profits”.97.1% of all CEOs interviewed went onrecord as saying that CSR should bepractised throughout the entire supplychain. The latter enables businessowners, managers and boards to setsocial and environmental standardsfor external actors demandingthat suppliers are in compliancewith regulatory frameworks, goodbusiness practices and internationallyagreed industrial relations regimes.At the same time, supply chainsprovide interest groups and activistmovements with an entry pointfor scrutinising especially globallyoperating businesses and theirprofessed sustainability commitmentsthus contributing towards corporateaccountability. Critics would arguethat in the past, such scrutinyhas engendered “negative publicsentiments and invariably resentmentstowards […] global brands following‘irresponsible’ behaviour along theirsupply chain” 19 and that companiescannot necessarily be held responsibleIs your company seeking to implementsustainability criteria throughout its supply chain?46.9%53.1%YesNo19 Kenneth Ameshi, Onyeka Kingsley Osuji, Paul Nnodim, ‘Corporate Social Responsibility in Supply Chains of Global Brands: A Boundaryless Responsibility? Clarifications, Exceptions andImplications, in: Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 81, No.1, p.226.26

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoCHAPTER 1CSR in Trinidad and Tobago – Strategic Evolution or Preserving the Status Quo?“Our suppliers partner with us to help bring services to our clients andwe are certainly looking for people and companies that have compatiblesustainability cultures. For example, in Trinidad and Tobago, we givepreference to local suppliers to create local jobs and drive local economicdevelopment. We have also partnered with some of our suppliers in thepast for fundraising events and community outreach. We have supportedschools, churches, orphanages and others because Fluor takes its communityresponsibility very seriously and because it is the right thing to do.”James Wilkins, Country General ManagerTrinidad and Tobago, Fluor Daniel South America Ltd.for the behaviour of their suppliers.However, most CSR advocates wouldagree that supply chain managementprovides an effective promotionalinstrument for those corporations thathave embraced the idea of strategicsustainability management.Nevertheless, when pressed beyondthe normative statement of howcompanies should treat with theissue and instead being asked if theyare concretely seeking to implementsustainability criteria through theirsupply chains, only slightly more thanhalf of all CEOs (53.1%) confirmedsuch intentions. While still revealingmore about the attitudes, plans andperceptions of CEOs, this resultsuggests that in terms of actualpractice the acceptance of andinterest in supply chain managementapproaches is a lot less pronounced.This interpretation finds additionalsubstantiation in the survey whenCEOs are being asked to name thethree most effective approachesof integrating CSR within theirindividual corporate frameworks. 20Here, only 17.1% mentioned supplychain management as being amongthe top three modalities trailingawards (34.3%), the development ofperformance measures and indicators(42.9%), internal communication(45.7%) and the promotion ofemployee volunteering (71.4%) as theapproaches chosen.Joel Pemberton, Managing Directorof energy firm Ten Degrees NorthLtd. points out: “Companies mayhave hundreds of contractors but onlya couple of dozen key contractors.Which three (3) of the following approaches are the most effective in integratig CSR within your company?80.0%70.0%60.0%50.0%40.0%30.0%20.0%10.0%0.0%74.3%Securebuy-in byseniormanagementand/or theBoard ofdirectors45.7%Internalcommunication(e.g.dissemination of Code ofConduct,newsletter,workshops,etc.)34.3%Awards (e.g.for employeevolunteering)We have implemented CSR throughthe supply chain with some of thesefew key contractors, not with all. Weget to spend a lot of time with theirmanagement teams, get to understandtheir business and to get our businessculture into that organisation, the waywe think and how we do business. Butits very time consuming”.42.9%DevelopCSR-relatedperformancemeasuresand keyperformanceindicators71.4%Promotingemployeevolunteering17.1% 17.1%TrainingEnsuringcompliance bydistributors,suppliers andcontractors20 Interviewees were being given the opportunity to provide three responses.27

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and Tobago“Every little thing we do as corporatebeings affects somebody”Sharon Christopher, Deputy CEO, First Citizens Bankon Corporate Ethics, Risk Management and Morality in BusinessQ: What is your take on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and by that Iinclude environmental concerns as well?InterviewSC: Corporations exist in a space and you are under an obligation in that spaceto benefit those around you. We can’t just be in the business of making moneybecause if you make money and you give nothing back then it is worthless andthe organisation will not be sustainable. We say that First Citizens is the only trulylocal financial institution in Trinidad and Tobago which was born from the people,by the people. What is the obligation that First Citizens owes to the society withinwhich it exists? We talk about the issue of corporate governance. Why is thatimportant? Asking those questions has helped us over the years because wehave seen that when you run organisations in an unethical manner it affects notonly the organisation but the entire society. You have not lived up to your duty andyou create destruction. We are not in this space to do that; we are in this space tomake it better for those who exist now and for those who will come afterwards.So we look at things such as our ethics and our environment. When we lendto customers for example, are we going to lend to a major corporate customerif we understand that the way in which they do their business is polluting theenvironment and, furthermore, they are not paying attention to those actions?And it’s not just about whether the Environmental Management Authority (EMA)will come down on them. It has to do too with the question of whether these arepeople that we want to be involved with because they are destroying the spacethat is ours.Then of course there is the whole question of sponsorships. Even when we dosponsorships we don’t just give money randomly; we determine the areas thatwe are going to support. The youth. Why? Because this is our future. We lookat things like sports. Why? Because we feel that through sports we create akind of discipline for the society. We look now at women’s issues. Again why?Because we recognise the contribution of women to our society. How can wecreate an environment in which women can live up to their highest potential? Allof this feeds back into our brand because we say that this is how we want ourorganisation to be known. It is just like an individual saying ‘I want to be knownas somebody who gives back and is leaving something better for those whocome behind me’. We also support the community activities like Eid-ul-Fitr, Divali30

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and Tobagoand other cultural festivals because it is very important for people to be part ofwhere they come from. When we talk about all of that, it’s our CSR, that is whatit means to be a good citizen.Take for example the earthquake in Haiti in 2010. Now, we don’t have branches inHaiti and then there’s the context of 2008, 2009 and 2010 being very difficult yearsfor the financial services sector. But there you have a country in the Caribbeandestroyed by an earthquake. We gave US$1 million to build a primary school andwe didn’t just hand the money to the government; we gave the money to theInter-American Development Bank (IADB) and we said this is what the schoolmust look like. The school must be built in accordance with earthquake andhurricane codes; there must be an area where the children are able to plant sothey can grow their own food. It’s not about giving money. It’s about what you arecreating for those who are here now and what you are leaving for those who arecoming behind... CSR is about understanding that if you exist in a space you needto give back to that space.Q: Do you think it is also a question of size and the dimension that yourbusiness has so that the bigger ones are under a bigger obligation andresponsibility than the smaller ones?No. First Citizens might be able to give a million dollars to Haiti and a smallercompany might not be able to do that. But it doesn’t have to do with the quantityof the money. It has to do with your focus. I can sit in my church and say that Iwant to write a cheque for over $5000 as a donation. Somebody else might say‘I can’t even write a cheque for five dollars, but what I can do is give half a day ofmy time to come and sit in the office to talk to people who are in crisis’.Q: Would you then agree that the concept of the Triple Bottom Line–socialand environmental performance of a company in addition to its commercialperformance–defines businesses in today’s market place or should define them?SC: In Trinidad, we had the Unemployment Relief Program (URP) workers andthey used to line up in front of the treasury building to collect their salaries. Thegovernment decided to start paying these people through the banking systemand all the banks except us felt that they didn’t want these people in their bankinghall. Now we said you can bank them by giving them ATM cards and allowing allof their payments to be made directly into their bank accounts. Because many31

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and Tobagoof them are not financially literate we will show them howto use the ATM machine so they can access their moneyin that way. We told our staff that we are embarking onthis initiative. Don’t get me wrong: we weren’t saying that itwas an initiative that wouldn’t make money, but we weren’tmaking a lot of money on this deal. The reason we weredoing it, and we explained that to our staff, was that it wasvery important to understand that these people are citizenstoo and we must do everything we can to assist others.What happened out of that exercise? We are talking aboutthousands of people coming to bank and, of course, wehad to open up on Saturdays and Sundays and all the staffcame because they were serving a purpose. And then theysaw people’s reactions when they came in to use the ATMmachine. This is something that we take for granted but toa lot of people to come in and do something like that wascompletely new. But it goes back to the point made earlierthat when you talk about the sustainability of your businessand when you talk about profitability, you have to talk aboutthings like purpose. We understand that more and more,especially from this younger generation that says, ‘Youknow what, we are in a business. We don’t mind workingand we will work but we have to know what we are workingfor and we have to work on something that makes us feelgood’. So if anybody running an organisation now wants torun it in ways that are unethical and ways that don’t allowpeople to feel that they have something to contribute tosome greater cause, your organisation is not going to besustainable. I have lived that and I have seen the truth ofthat. More and more organisations will have to realise that.Q: You touched already on the question of corporateethics. Particularly in the wake of the 2008 financialcrisis, the issue of corporate governance has becomesomething of a ‘hot topic’. Looking at Trinidad andTobago and its boardrooms, were there changes in thismarketplace in response to mistakes made in this areaof corporate governance? Did the market react?SC: There have been changes because a lot of companiesin Trinidad and Tobago have a global reach: either theythemselves have businesses outside the country or theymust deal with people and business partners from abroad.As Europe and the U.S. become more rigid about corporategovernance it drives the process. Maybe ten years agonobody was really interested in who your directors were,what exactly their level of qualification was. Now what youfind happening is that when they come to do due diligenceon you, the corporate governance aspects of your businesssuch as how is the organisation run, what kind of board youhave in place, what kind of procedures you have, whetheryou have a code of ethics, how is it rolled out to your staff,how much ethics training do you do… all those things arenow huge and organisations are being forced into doingthem. In Trinidad and Tobago there is a real need to driveproper governance in both government and corporate life.But people have to connect the dots. You have to go to themand tell them why it is important. And government could bethe driver behind bringing in the resources to do that kindof training because it is very expensive. We do corporategovernance training for our board where we use an externalfacilitator and it’s costly. But if government started throughthe state sector first where the companies are huge, thatwould change the dynamics.Q: When you talked about education and sports asthe topical areas that you identified and when you aresaying that you have not just randomly taken a numberof issues and causes but you have your reasons for whyyou are supporting those causes, does the bank in itsselection process also take into consideration broaderdevelopment frameworks such as government policiesor even the UN’s Millennium Development Goals(MDGs)?No we really don’t. We sit and we look at society and thendetermine the kinds of needs and where we would be mosteffective. For example, at one stage poverty eradication wasa huge thing but we decided that this was not somethingthat we could get involved in. But we looked at the youth32

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and Tobagoand realised that this is an important area and we wanted toget involved in that. There are always a number of issues andyou have to choose where you are going to focus. I supposethe reason we are not getting tied to a specific governmentplan in our CSR activities is because the plans keep shiftingonce the government changes, which is ridiculous becauseyou don’t have to throw out everything each time.Q: Looking at social and environmental indicatorswith you being part of the financial services industry,would it be accurate to say that CSR and sustainabilitythinking are also important tools for the Bank in termsof its risk management? How do you personally andorganisationally reconcile the moral dimension, thehuman face of corporate being and your businessconsiderations?If you are talking about risk management and if you aretalking about the environment you need to acknowledgethat risk has not only to do with credit risk; you havereputational risk as well. If we have a customer who, forexample, is polluting the environment in a certain way orwe start understanding that there are things going on withthis customer that are ethically just not acceptable, suchas the way they are operating in villages, then we are notgoing to deal with that customer. And people would say itsmorality. But the fact is it’s not only morality. It has to do withyour own business because if people know that those arethe customers that you are dealing with, it is going to affectyou negatively. You know in Trinidad and Tobago we havea saying ‘if you lie down with puppy you must get fleas’?It means you become a part of whatever’s being done bythose with whom you associate. We have people who bankwith us who are telling us that they bank with us becausethey like what we are doing in the field of corporate ethics.So it’s just not as simple as saying that I will look the otherway if a customer is operating unethically because I havesuch large business with him. I think all organisations willstart to move away from that because there is the growingunderstanding that we are impacted by those with whomwe associate and at the end of the day it is going to affectyour bottom line.We are in the business of making money but there is alsothe question of how you are making it. Just this week aswe sat around the boardroom table, the senior managersgroup was talking about a certain product and one of themanagers was saying that there are certain things that youcould do to really leverage this for us. But somebody elsearound the table said we are not going down that road. Weare not doing it, because it’s unethical. The discussion wasif we do this and it ever becomes known that we wereinvolved in something like this we are going to be deadin the water, we are going to start losing customers. Andit wasn’t something illegal. There is no law that says wecouldn’t do it, but we have ethics. Ethics is doing what isright even though there may be no law stopping you fromdoing otherwise.Q: What is your view on the role of government in CSR,perhaps as regulator, enabler and facilitator?I don’t know about regulator but the government cancertainly be a facilitator and enabler. And in countries likeours where the government is the largest employer and thegovernment manages the largest number of corporations,it is very important for the executive to drive certainbehaviours from the top. CSR is not how much money Igive the National Carnival Committee (NCC) to run Carnivalor how much money I give to a steel band. If you look atthe sponsorship side, it’s not only about handing out themoney. It’s about saying that when I look at this steel bandas a sponsor, I realise that they are taking young kids out ofone of the most depressed areas and I can see that theyare mentoring those kids; therefore that’s where I am goingto place my support. If government starts to push thatkind of thing, just because of its size… its critical mass, itwill send a certain kind of signal and encourage a certainkind of behaviour. In the area of sponsorship I think thatgovernment can help by providing certain incentives topeople. If you talk about governance and you have all thesestate enterprises that are being run without any adherenceto governance, then what value does that create? It is notabout having another governance seminar every Saturday.It’s not just a word.33

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoQ: Do you have an official volunteer programme?No, we don’t have a volunteer programme as such. Whatwe do have is that at the end of every year, every branchand unit is required to have what we call a ‘corporatewish’. It means that you go into your community and youdetermine some activity that needs to be done, whether itis rebuilding a library for schools in the Beetham, whetherit is a single mother with differently-able kids who you areseeking to assist, whether it is a father whose wife hasdied and whose only daughter needs a wheelchair. So theyare going out to do things: re-painting a school, helpingto rebuild a house. Sometimes we have activities aroundour ‘Care’ programme which stands for ‘Citizens in Actionto Restore the Environment’ where employees would goout and undertake different activities with respect to theenvironment. We take photographs of what happenedand we put it together in a magazine so people feel goodabout what they have been doing but we also, as we sayin Trinidad, ‘big them up’ for doing it. In the performanceappraisal for our managers, you are actually scored for yourinvolvement in community activities. As a result, peoplewant to be able to say at a managerial level that these werethe things that they were involved in. Even outside of theformal programme and official activities of First Citizens,the managers will look for causes where they can say thatthey were involved, for example in Rotary or SERVOL ormentoring. You can get marks for those activities and it’s nolonger just your financial targets but it’s also what we callthe ‘below-the-line’ targets.Q: Have you changed your views on CSR over the years?I have not changed my views; I have only become moreentrenched in them. No man is an island. If you are sittingthere and you are doing your little thing inside of your littlespace and it would affect nobody else, that would be fine;but it’s just not like that. Every single thing we do as humanbeings, every little thing we do as corporate beings, affectssomebody. And every day you get up you must ask yourself‘What is my purpose on this earth for the short time that Iam here? Is my purpose to destroy or is it to make a positivedifference?’ We might call it CSR now but at the end of theday it is what is required of us as people in this space. Thatis all.34

“As far as government involvement is concerned, taxation and legislation can be useful tools topromote the involvement of people in CSR. Particularly taxation is one way in which incentives canbe given for more people to put money into social services and poverty alleviation, information andeducation for disadvantaged people and so on.”Emile Elias, CEONH International (Caribbean Ltd.)36

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoCHAPTER 2Government, Consumers and Employees – The Drivers of CSRGovernment, Consumers andEmployees – The Drivers of CSRCHAPTER 2Senior managers recognise the important role that national governments can playin the development and promotion of enabling frameworks for CSR. 51.5% of allCEOs interviewed for this survey mentioned governments as the second mostimportant stakeholder group driving CSR within the local business communityand raising the profile of corporate sustainability in Trinidad and Tobago. Whilethis figure represents just about half of all respondents, a remarkable 75.8% ofCEOs would even welcome government intervention thus embracing the idea of asignificantly stronger and more intrusive configuration for public involvement inregulatory affairs. This suggests a rather radical shift away from the traditionallyskeptical attitude of members of the business community with respect togovernment involvement in the sustainability-relevant aspects of the markets. Italso seems to point at a change in the widespread conviction of entrepreneurs andbusiness owners that companies should be able to voluntarily determine the levelof their social and environmental commitment.Generally, the way by whichgovernments can drive corporateresponsibility rests on both voluntaryand mandatory approaches andencompasses roles as enabler,exemplar, enforcer and partner. 21While voluntary buy-in for the ideaand concept of CSR appears to bethe least confrontational and hastherefore often been the preferredmode of action for managers, theestablishment of binding legislativeframeworks allows for compatibilitywith international norms, creates alevel playing field for competitionand determines governmentalexpectations for corporate behaviour.In the words of the authors of a recentstudy on the role of governments inCSR, “voluntary initiatives – whichby definition are not legally binding– should never be a substitute foreffective regulation, but can be apowerful complement.” 22 WhileWillard P. Harris, Managing Directorof COLFIRE makes more generallythe point that “the government is afacilitator”, Govind Maharaj, CEO ofEastern Commercial Lands Ltd. prefersa more balanced approach when hesays that “a bit of moral suasion, abit of government intervention and abit of partnering with government isrequired”. In Trinidad and Tobago, thegovernment itself seems to increasinglyrealise the value that its involvementWould you welcome government intervention as adriver for CSR?24.2%75.8%YesNo21 See UNDP Report Caribbean Regional Conference ‘Corporate Social Responsibility – Creating value through Public-Private Partnership’, UNDP Trinidad and Tobago, p.12.22 The Role of Governments in Promoting Corporate Responsibility and Private Sector Engagement in Development, United Nations Global Compact and Bertelsmann Stiftung, p.17.37

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoCHAPTER 2Government, Consumers and Employees – The Drivers of CSR“I would like to see thestate’s role more in moralsuasion than in regulationin that if you don’tparticipate we can makeyou feel bad but we won’tmake you feel that you areobligated to. Your peerpressure, your communitypush, your colleagues inthe industry, what that willdo is to woo you if you areresistant to playing yourpart. But I don’t thinkmit should be involved inregulation. It should beobligatory in the socialconscience and less inrules and laws.”Ingrid Lashley, CEOTrinidad and Tobago MortgageFinance (TTMF)in sustainable policy-making andin the establishment of frameworkconditions for inclusive bottom-ofthe-pyramidmodels of CSR has.Addressing the issue of developinga national CSR policy, Minister ofTrade and Industry Steven Cadiz at aworkshop organised by the Trinidadand Tobago Chamber of Industry andCommerce (TTCIC) in October 2011stressed the external dimension of awell-developed domestic corporateresponsibility landscape when hereminded the audience that CSR“is key for strategically positioningand branding Trinidad and Tobagoas a dynamic and modern hub forconducting competitive businessand attracting greater investments.I want to assure you, the businessowners present today, that when thenational CSR policy is completedand implemented, it will help all ourfirms regardless of scale or size in thesystem, manage the complex set ofrelationships that exist and developstrategies to integrate CSR principlesin their day to day operations. 23This statement stands in stark contrastto the findings of the 2008 MappingReport which concluded that “thereare few fiscal incentives for companiesto undertake CSR related initiativesand there is no set framework tocoordinate CSR initiatives at thenational level.” 24 It however is verymuch in line with the thinking inboardrooms across both islands giventhat 88.6% of all CEOs would welcomethe development of a national CSRPolicy as a standard-setting frameworkfor the Private sector.The heightened awareness of politicaldecision-makers about CSR andthe seemingly greater opennesstowards government involvementby senior managers may open upnew opportunities for Public-PrivatePartnerships giving more adequaterecognition to the fact that in the postwelfarestate scenario of shrinkingstate expenditures and concerns overunsustainable levels of public debt, allsocietal actors including the PrivateIn your opinion, which stakeholders are the most important drivers for CSR?90.0%80.0%70.0%60.0%50.0%40.0%30.0%20.0%10.0%0.0%47.1%Human Rights73.5%CorporateGovernance55.9%Labour Standards(includingOccupational Healthand Safety)76.5%Environment(including energymgt, carbon mgt,waste mgt, watermgt)41.2%Anti-Corruption23 Minister of Trade and Industry Steven Cadiz, Speech at the Breakfast Seminar ‘CSR and Government: By Stander, Follower or Leader?’, Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Industry and Commerce(TTCIC), 4th October 2011.24 UNDP/STCIC Mapping Report, p.54.38

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoCHAPTER 2Government, Consumers and Employees – The Drivers of CSRWould you welcome the development of a nationalCSR Policy as a standard-setting framework for thePrivate Sector?11.4%can and should do to encouragecorporate citizenship. Rather thechallenge is whether the governmentcan find ways to raise the strategicsignificance of corporate citizenship inaddressing social and environmentalchallenges, both to business as animperative and as an enabler of moreeffective government policy, bothnationally and on the global stage.” 2588.6%YesNoSector need to play a more activerole in honouring their obligationsas signatories to the social contract.Govind Maharaj, CEO of the TruValusupermarket chain operator EasternCommercial Lands Ltd. points outthat “people are at different levels ofhow they see CSR so to get everybodyto comply and to head in the samedirection at the same speed is goingto be difficult.” Nevertheless, theprospect of forging social partnershipsacross sectoral lines seems to be anidea that is increasingly embracedby greater number of companies inTrinidad and Tobago. Furthermore,becoming a protagonist of CSR itselfand intervening through policyinitiatives and other forms of ‘soft’regulations would give the governmentan opportunity to spearhead nationalefforts of ‘greening’ the economy inline with its own policy objectivesand responding to the evidentenvironmental vulnerabilities ofthe country. Reflecting on the roleof government in CSR in what hecalls ‘Third Generation CorporateCitizenship’, Simon Zadek remarksthat “the issue is not merely whetherthere are things that the governmentAs traditional dividing lines betweenissues, responsibilities, portfoliosand public versus private ‘turfs’ arebecoming increasingly blurred, CEOsare keenly aware of their changingrole in society and of the way inwhich political decision-makers andmembers of the public are viewingtheir contribution to the social andenvironmental development of thecountry. This is reflected in the 75.8%of all CEOs that have expressed theirbelief that companies are increasinglyexpected to take over parts of socialservice delivery previously reservedfor governments. In other words, therole of government is being re-definedas a result of the growing strains onpublic resources and its dependenceon the social engagement of privatecapital suggests the emergence ofa new division of labour betweencompanies and the state with the latterto provide the regulatory frameworkfor the former to deliver social goodsand services in particular areas.In many countries, an importantdriver for the CSR business caseis consumers. Businesses, manyCSR practitioners argue, havebeen prompted into changing theircorporate behaviour as well as thenature of their production processesand manufacturing conditionsbecause of the pressure generatedthrough ‘ethical consumerism’.The latter contains both a positive(‘reward’) and negative (‘punishment’)Rationale for Public SectorInvolvement in CSRThe defensive justifaction forpublic sector actors in middleandlow-income countriesrelates to minimizing thepotentially adverse effects ofCSR on local communities,environments and marketswhen it is imposed throughinternational supply chainsand investment.The proactive justification forpublic sector actors to engagewith CSR is provided by theopportunity to increase thedomestic public benefits ofCSR practices in economic,social and environmentalterms.Adopted from ‘CSR andDeveloping Countries – WhatScope for Government Action’,UN Department of Economicand Social Affairs, SustainableDevelopment InnovationBriefs, Issue 1, February 200725 Simon Zadek, Third Generation Corporate Citizenship – Public Policy and Business in Society, The Foreign Policy Centre and AccountAbility 2001, p.14.39

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoCHAPTER 2Government, Consumers and Employees – The Drivers of CSRand Tobago than in other countries.“Business and earning money through businessimpacts heavily on ethics. I think the governmentalso plays a role in that they can create theenvironment to motivate the business community tobehave in a certain way. I personally looked at theGlobal Compact and decided let’s make this partof our corporate strategy. But most business peoplehaven’t reached that point, they need to be educated,they need to be informed and for them, you haveto create that kind of enabling environment thatdoesn’t tolerate corruption, that forbids pollutingthe environment, that doesn’t tolerate unfair labourpractices and inspires them to make a contributionbecause it is in their interest and in the country’sinterest to behave like that. If you leave the privatesector alone like that it is like asking a child to writean exam at the university level.”Dave RamkissoonCEO EIL Group of CompaniesThe skepticism of CEOs about the‘driving qualities’ of consumers inTrinidad and Tobago with regards toCSR is further reflected in the factthat only 48.6% of them believe thatconsumers’ purchasing decisionsare increasingly determined by acompany’s social reputation while51.4% did not think that such socialprestige featured prominently inthe decision-making process ofindividuals.Would you agree with the assertion that consumer’spurchasing decisions in Trinidad and Tobago areincreasingly determined by a company’s socialreputation?51.4%48.6%Do you think it is true that companies areincreasingly expected to take over parts ofsocial service delivery previously reserved forgovernments?31.4%68.6%YesNodimension with consumers’ desires,preferences, expectations andrejections leading to a range ofbehavioural and attitude-specificconsequences from purchasing goodsthat have a perceivably high ethical‘value’ to boycotting companies whoseproducts and services do not meetthe ethical standards of a demandingpublic. Based on the findings of thissurvey, such consumer pressure inTrinidad and Tobago seems to beconsiderably lower and less of a ‘gamechanger’than in foreign markets.While only 11.4% of all CEOs namedconsumer and customer demand as adriver for them to take action on CSRissues, an overwhelming 85.3% of allrespondents agreed with the assertionthat social and environmentalconcerns influenced consumerbehaviour to a lesser extent in Trinidad68.6%YesNoThere is little or no evidence tosuggest that Caribbean consumersare prepared to pay a premium onproducts with ethical attributes and toreward exemplary corporate behaviourand ethical leadership because of theirenlightened self-interest As far as the‘punishment’ dimension of consumerpressure is concerned, Trinidad andTobago has never experienced aconsumer boycott or any other formof an effective public promotionscampaign that used the purchasingpower of ‘consumer citizens’ to coerceprivate businesses to choose or abstain26 Johannes Brinkmann, Ken Peattie, ‘Consumer Ethics Research: Reframing the Debate about Consumption for Good’, Electronic Journal of Business Ethics and Organization Studies, Vol.13, No.1(2008), p.40

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoCHAPTER 2Government, Consumers and Employees – The Drivers of CSRWould you say that social and environmentalconcerns influence consumer behaviour to alesser extent in Trinidad and Tobago than in othercountries?14.7%85.3%YesNoyour employees satisfied primarilywith their jobs and secondarily withtheir lives. That in the end means thatyou have happy employees and whenyou have happy employees you havegood production and when you havegood production you make money.If they all feel that the company iscommitted to them, there is so muchmore you will get in return”. Lookingat the drivers of CSR through theindividual lenses of senior managers,the findings suggest a strong focusof CEOs on employees in makingCSR-related decisions with 71.4% ofall respondents naming employeeengagement as their main driver fortaking action.What would be the main drivers for you as CEO to take action on CSR issues?from certain forms of corporatebehaviour. 26In addition to government andconsumers as external stakeholders,company employees are seen byCEOs as an internal stakeholdergroup that effectively drives CSRwithin the Private Sector. Employeescan be both direct beneficiaries ofgood corporate practices as well asexecutioners of CSR projects such ascommunity development activitiesand campaigns to raise awarenessabout environmental sustainabilityissues. 65.7% of CEOs nameemployees as the most importantdrivers for CSR leaving government(51.4%), communities (40%) andBoard of Directors (40%) to trail insecond, third and fourth place. Evenmore impressively, 71.4% of CEOsresponded to the question of whatwould be the main driver for them intheir professional role to take actionon CSR issues by naming employees.Stanley Tempro, Managing Director ofBonsal Caribbean suggests that “CSRis trying to do a better job in getting90.0%80.0%70.0%60.0%50.0%40.0%30.0%20.0%10.0%0.0%82.9%Brand, trust andreputation20.0%Potential forrevenuegrowth/costreduction34.3%Personalmotivation11.4%Consumer/customerdemand71.4%Employeeengagement“What we have tried to do within our own organisationis to make a better life for our employees by workingwith us. So instead of working for us they are workingwith us, we are working together for this hand in hand.We can’t affect everybody’s quality of life in the countrybut if we can positively affect the quality of life for ourstaff, I think we are achieving something.”John Sabga, Managing DirectorTrotters Restaurant41

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and Tobago“The biggest CSR leader in any company needsto be the CEO”Charles Percy, CEO Methanex Trinidad and Tobago Ltd.on Sweat Equity, Corporate Volunteerism and the Value of HumanCapitalQ: What do you make of the fundamental thought underlying CSR thatthere is something that in terms of responsible behaviour – internallyand externally – goes beyond just the bottom line, goes beyond the corebusiness?InterviewCP: The raw material that all businesses use is “human capital” and thereforethey owe something toward the nurturing of that source of human capital toensure the quality of the resource which comes into their businesses, as well asto ensure its continuous development.The question is how do businesses influence the society in which they operate sothat they leave it the better for their presence. For me, CSR needs to be lookedat as human capital development. How do we influence the human capital whichis the real engine of any organization? Do we influence it through the schoolsystem; do we influence young people who are the leaders of tomorrow in theway we position them to see the future? How do we also influence the sheerfabric of society with the debates and actions which occur within and outside ofour organizations? All businesses therefore need to recognize that they do have amoral responsibility for replenishing, renewing and developing the human capitalin their immediate environment and sphere of influence. That is where I see allbusinesses having a stake in social responsibility.Q: And you would not feel guilty if a critic of CSR would tell you that thisis a very selfish way of looking at it? After all, human capital is of crucialrelevance for the success of your business and therefore what you are doingon the social front is something that you expect to be beneficial to yourcommercial operations.CP: There are four ‘P’s’ in social responsibility from the viewpoint of a corporation:there are the “pet projects” which are neither good for business nor society,but may only serve to stroke the ego of some CEO or owner/manager. Thenyou have “philanthropy”, which is just about giving some money that may helpa few NGO’s, but really does nothing for the corporation. And then you have“propaganda”, which pushes the company’s line for whatever selfish reasonand benefits only the company, not society. And finally there is “partnering”,which is truly designed to help society as well as the business. Businesses fund44

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoAll levels of business need to recognise that they have aresponsibility for the replenishing, the renewing and thedevelopment of the human capital stock that they utilise.And therein lies for me social responsibility.CSR initiatives from the profit they make and this is only sustainable in good aswell as lean times, if the ‘value proposition’ remains credible. Am I thereforeselfish in favouring true partnering? Yes, I am, if at the end of day I am satisfiedthat both society and business truly benefit.Q: How do your colleagues in the business world react to your veryoutspoken and very strong stance on the issue of CSR? Do they see this asa distraction from the core business?CP: When you have lived the journey and seen the transformation and power thatis unleashed when an organization is fully engaged, then you know how integralsocial responsibility is to your business. When I started at Methanex TrinidadLimited as CEO in 2006, our employee engagement survey score was 32 outof a possible 100 and none of the other Methanex Corporation companies wereless than 50. Through a disciplined approach over five years, we were able tomove from 32 to 74 per cent and now we sit on the top quartile of MethanexCorporation’s employee engagement. We now have an engaged workforce thatis not just delivering internally, but delivers externally as well. We have won theEnergy Chamber’s CSR Award for ‘Recognizing the Value of People’ in 2009 and2010; and through Methanex’s commitment to Responsible Care, we have built areputation for being an employer of choice and a good corporate citizen.We have also seen the value of our efforts through our ‘Mentoring Our Children’program, which engages young professionals in our organization as mentors forhigh potential secondary school students who are all from “humble means”. Itis amazing to see the positive changes in the lives of these children as well asthe personal growth of our young professionals. It is so rewarding to see theinnovation of our professionals, the engagement of the students, their familiesand the entire organization and especially the desire by all “to live; to love; to learnand to leave a legacy”. We also partner with Habitat for Humanity to build andrenovate homes for the families of these students in the program, so that theycan all learn and live in a comfortable environment. Imagine how powerful it isfor an employee here to be part of that experience. When they come back intothe company, work means more than earning a salary; it is about developing anindividual, a family, a society and a corporation.45

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoQ: If you look around in the Private Sector in Trinidadand Tobago, would you say that the local businesscommunity is sufficiently engaged in CSR?CP: A lot of what is done still feels like philanthropy. Howdoes society sustainably benefit from what you are tryingto do? And how does your organization and its people alsobenefit? If you cannot answer those two questions throughpartnering, then you are not really doing CSR.As a member of the Chemical Industry Association ofCanada, Methanex uses its tagline of ‘A Responsible CareCompany’. Responsible Care is good business and socialresponsibility is an extension of it. We are a responsiblecare company and that covers safety, the environment,people, fence line communities and the wider society, thewhole umbrella.Q: If you look at CSR and corporate volunteerismthrough the human resource lens, what are for youthe tangible benefits that the company derives frommobilising volunteers among its staff?CP: You have to see how the light bulb goes off in aperson when they can make a tangible difference to thelife of another human being. Volunteerism gives meaningto employees’ performance and workplace interactionbecause it builds leadership skills, teamwork and a specialcamaraderie that grows through social interaction. Veryimportantly, their values are aligned with those of theorganization. This synergy makes volunteering easy; itmakes devoting their 9/80 days off to community-giving aneasy choice.Q: It seems that you haven’t got any problems to mobilisecorporate volunteers and that there is an outpouringand an interest and a high degree of motivation. A lotof other companies have expressed frustration overthe difficulty of going beyond the ‘usual suspects’, thehandful of employees who always volunteer.CP: In terms of volunteerism, there will always be theusual suspects but you have to find ways of bringing morepeople into the limelight. As a CEO, I lead the charge ingetting more employees engaged in volunteer efforts. Thebiggest CSR leader in the corporation has to be the CEO.My presence at every function and weekend sessions goesa long way in showing that I care. Internally, the care givento employees’ well-being and health, particularly throughan onsite state-of-the-art wellness facility, cafeteria andmedical centre, is causing them to reflect on how fortunatethey are. Recognition of volunteers by the company andtheir peers is also motivating more persons in giving backto others who are less fortunate.Q: What is your view on the nonprofit organizationsand their capacity to become partners for businesses?CP: You cannot partner with every NGO. You can actphilanthropically towards NGOs but you cannot enter intotrue partnerships with too many NGOs because they haveto fit the social fabric of your organization. For example,our employees are more inclined to projects which theycan identify with and invest sweat equity in – like buildingand painting houses for students and their families, inconjunction with Habitat for Humanity. They hesitate to helpsome NGOs because monthly salary deductions feel tooimpersonal. Therefore, it needs to be an NGO that meetsthe social psyche of your organization.46

“Our process for supporting NGOs is very rigorous. Every NGO has to develop a project plan for uswhich we evaluate. We have project officers who go out there and evaluate the ability to actually execute.Once we have identified the terms of actually supporting a specific project each member of our executivemanagement team are allocated projects. So you are talking about people on the most senior level ofthe organisation who become the project sponsor. We have moved away from small projects to really bigprojects. Maybe it’s part of our training. The same way we lend money to somebody who has to pay backwe use the same kind of process to make sure the money is spent properly.”David Dulal-Whiteway, CEORepublic Bank48

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoCHAPTER 3The Third Sector Revisited – Private Sector and Nonprofit PartnershipsThe Third Sector Revisited– Private Sector and NonprofitPartnershipsOver the past few years, partnerships between the business community andnonprofit organisations have become an increasingly integrated feature ofnon-philanthropic forms of CSR and an important configuration of externalsustainability activities and their implementation at least in foreign markets. Incontrast, four years ago the situation with respect to corporate collaboration withCivil Society Organizations (CSOs) in Trinidad and Tobago was described in the2008 UNDP CSR Mapping Report as “limited” particularly in the “planning processof sponsored programmes.” 27 Partnerships have been defined as “a commitmentby a corporation or a group of corporations to work with an organisation froma different economic sector (public and private) and characterized as involving“a commitment of resources – time and effort – by individuals from all partnerorganisations.” 28CHAPTER 3While businesses see NGOs aseffective drivers for CSR - 37.1% ofCEOs expressed this view – NGOsare also legitimizing companies’efforts to secure a license to operate inlocal communities. If conceptualisedmethodologically with expectationson both sides managed in a timelyfashion, social partnering canbecome a rewarding co-productionof developmental gains. Many NGOspossess community access and adegree of specialised knowledge thatcompanies do not have availablein-house but often depend on inthe implementation of their CSRprogrammes. In turn, companieshave the ability to mobilize additionalhuman resources in the form ofcorporate volunteers, provide vitallyimportant financial support toprojects and, through their technicaland business skills, may be ableto assist nonprofit organisationsalso in the area of organisationaldevelopment. Govind Maharaj, CEOof Eastern Commercial Lands Ltd.says about his own NGO experience:“I think the NGOs are doing a goodjob given their limited resources bothin terms of capacity and funding.We for example work with SERVOLto achieve two purposes. Firstly, toget the people of that organizationout into the business world to learna skill or to become more aware ofhow a business runs and it also givesus a pool for recruitment. Nonprofitorganisations could do a lot betterthough if their capacity was enhancedand their funding was increased.”While partnerships with the PrivateSector have undoubtedly the potentialto address the issues of capacity gapsand financial pressure, they also leadto important gains for NGOs in thearea of organizational credibility andprestige when teaming up with a wellknowncorporate entity. While NGOsare able to secure key financial supportand enhance and solidify their statuswithin the national developmentarena, their corporate partners areoften able to derive positive spin-offeffects in terms of their reputationalvalue and the creation of brand equitythrough corporate social marketing. 2927 UNDP/STCIC CSR Mapping Report, p.ix.28 Sandra Waddock, ‘Building Successful Partnerships, Sloan Management Review, Summer 1988, p.18.29 See Steve Hoeffler, Kevin Lane Keller, ‘Building Brand Equity Through Corporate Societal Marketing’, in: Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Vol.21, No.12, Spring 2002, pp. 78-89.49

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoCHAPTER 3The Third Sector Revisited – Private Sector and Nonprofit Partnerships“My wife and I started an organisation a while agowhich is located in Laventille and is called K.I.N.D.(Kids in Need of Direction). There we deal with kidswho have social problems, emotional problems,learning problems and once you have successfullyaddressed those issues you are surprised how farthey can go. Some of them just graduated fromuniversity. It started off with almost no hope,they were outside the system and it just showsif they have the right input and care. Where theorganisation is today is way beyond the point wherewe started it, we have a staff of around twelvepeople. In terms of the funding, we are runningthe NGO now for fifteen years in Laventille whichis a hot-spot community and we have not receivedone cent ever from any government ministry andwe have virtually given up to secure financialassistance from the government. We receive a lotof funding from foreign donors. We spend a lot oftime marketing and fundraising and writing lettersand we sometimes feel that we are a marketingorganisation when we are a service organisation.”Daniel Scott, CEOAnthony P.Scott Ltd.However, partnerships are not a winwinarrangement by default. In order toachieve targeted outcomes and developsustainable partnership structures,both companies and nonprofitorganisations need to pay considerableattention to the process of partnerselection and its strategic context,the design of joint projects and themanagement of mutual expectations.Selecting the right partner NGO -something that “can be the resultof either a planned or an emergentprocess” 30 - is a crucial pre-requisitefor successful collaboration betweenbusinesses and nonprofits. Finding theright match for joint activities basedon a partnership approach requiresalignment of strategic direction, aclear understanding of the sharedresponsibility on assignments, arecognition that organizationalsize matters on both sides of thepartnership and a thorough graspof the mutual needs and pay-offexpectations. The longevity, regularityand nature of partnership-drivenjoint initiatives may vary from caseto case and a company’s nonprofit‘portfolio’ may be characterised bysome degree of diversity. Eugen Tiah,CEO of Phoenix Park Gas ProcessorsLtd. points out that “we do partnerwith traditional NGOs. Sometimesthe partnership is an ongoing type ofrelationship and sometimes it’s of aproject nature in that we work over anumber of years on a particular projectand see that through to completion.But our model is that we will partnerwith an NGO and we will define whatwe expect in terms of governance andstandards of performance. We definewhat the deliverables are, we definehow they will be delivered and we alsodefine what we will stand for and whatwe won’t stand for.”In other cases, focusing on one’s owncore business guides companies intheir selection process of nonprofitpartners. Ingrid Lashley, CEO ofTrinidad and Tobago MortgageFinance Ltd. (TTMF) explains:“Habitat for Humanity is an NGO thatwe worked with very closely and onethat is in line with our business. Wetry to get people into a home, that iswhat we do as a business. Mortgagefinancing is the way we do it butour focus is always to put people inhomes. If we therefore have displacedboys we must find a home. If we havehomeless people we must find a home.If we have a home that is dilapidatedwe must contribute to building a30 Maria May Seitanidi, Andrew Crane, ‘Implementing CSR through partnerships: understanding the selection, design and institutionalisation of nonprofit-business partnerships’, Journal of BusinessEthics, Vol.5, No.2, Supplement 2, 2009, p.422.50

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoCHAPTER 3The Third Sector Revisited – Private Sector and Nonprofit Partnershipsbetter home. Habitat is involved inall that so they are a natural fit.” Thistype of congruence has been describedby some experts as a ‘cause fit’ which“involves a compatible positioningbetween the company and the causethat is based on an element of strategicsimilarity”. 31Contrasting with such an approachthat seeks to align a company’score business with its partnershipidentification and selection process,other corporate actors deal withthe issue of nonprofit partnershipsin a more ad-hoc, reactive and lessformalised way. Michael Aboud,CEO of Amalgamated Security Ltd.explains: “The NGOs that we workwith would be the Living Waterscommunity and we would normallyrespond with whatever they needfrom us. For example, if they havea fair and they want security or theywant us to incorporate some of theirpeople in our mentoring programmethen we would facilitate that. We have,however, no formal agreement withany of the NGOs. We see NGOs asthe conduits through which we canexecute some of our projects. If weare talking to our managers aboutour social engagement, we would askthem to identify through the NGOsthe things that they would like to seehappening and to see if we can getinvolved in that. But it’s not formal.They are important but they are alsovery focused in what they want todo which is not necessarily what Iwant to do. If the alignment is notthere, the project may never happenthrough them. So they may come tous with something where we feel thatthis is something that they can do ontheir own and they don’t need to bein partnership with us.” And askedabout the same aspect of formal andlong-term partnership arrangementsbetween the world of profits andthe world of societal development,Norman Christie, President of bpTTelaborates: “Globally, the partnershipsbetween companies and NGOshaven’t really always focused on thenotion of sustainability. Somehow therelationship tends to be in itself shorttermin focus. So, I believe that anevolution is required. NGOs might beevolving and might be getting betterbut there are even more possibilitiesto develop that space so that when we(i.e. companies and NGOs) are talkingit is really a conversation about apartnership on long-term sustainableissues.”Since companies and nonprofits hailfrom different organizational cultures,the room for misunderstandings,misaligned expectations, attemptsat dominating joint activities or thedivergence of targets and objectivesis considerable. Suspicion, mistrustand apprehension are the likely byproductsof partnerships that lacksufficient preparation, informationand expectation management.The problem of corporate micromanagingor at least the perceptionof corporate micro-managing ashighlighted in the previous casearises predominantly in situationsin which the company decides toadopt a programmatic approachinstead of pursuing a philanthropicand grant-making model of supportfor social and environmental causes.Combining the two approaches,Nicolas Galt, President of the TSLGroup of companies says abouthis company’s support for nongovernmentalorganisations: “Inso far as NGOs are concerned,our involvement has been largelymentoring, time based and somewhatfinancial. We use our experience inbusiness and our ability to understanda business proposition to adviseyoung start-ups how to deal with this.“Managing expectationson both sides of thepartnership withregards to the levelof organizationalcommitment, to theoutput produced andoutcomes generated aswell as to the resourcesallocated will determineif volunteer projectsbecome reasons forcelebration or a triggerfor corporate hang-over.”Roadmap to CorporateVolunteering- 6 Steps Towards Developingan Employee VolunteerProgrammeUNDP Trinidad and Tobago201131 Ida E. Berger, Peggy H. Cunningham, Minette E. Drumwright, ‘Social Alliances: Company/Nonprofit Collaboration’, California Management Review, Vol.47, No.1, Fall 2004, p.74.51

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoCHAPTER 3The Third Sector Revisited – Private Sector and Nonprofit PartnershipsThe United Way –Nonprofit Funding and Charitable Giving“What interested us when we first got involved with United Way on the upside was theconcept of UWTT’s vetting of charitable organisations to ensure that the organisationsand environment were bona fide. The downside was the knowledge that a portion ofthe money being collected would be used for administrative purposes. In short, whenwe spent a dollar on charitable organizations the full dollar goes there but if we sentit through United Way it’s probably discounted by the administrative costs of theorganization. We also realised, on the other side, that there are a number of NGOs inTrinidad and Tobago that are receiving funds from government and from organisationssuch as ours to support their efforts but in some of these institutions those fundsactually disappear into the pockets of persons that are running the show.So United Way appealed to us in that they were vetting these things, it is properlyorganised and administered and made sure that the money was well spent. There wasyet another appealing area of the whole thing and that is that an organisation as smallas ours gets inundated every single week with requests for charitable donations andit was somewhat easier for us to subscribe to United Way and to create a standardletter to say to the majority of them that we are already working with United Way andsuggests through this medium that they go through the United Way AccreditationProgramme. By so doing, they in turn could be certified and accredited for United Waysupport on a continuing basis.”Nicolas Galt, PresidentTCL Group of Companies52

Those requests would come through institutionswith which we are involved like the Youth BusinessTrust. On occasion these come directly to us aswell.” However, not all companies engage in socialpartnerships with NGOs. Norman Sabga, Chairmanof the Ansa McAl Group of Companies says:“Though we may partner with certain NGOs fromtime to time, we think that we are large enough to doour own thing. That’s because of our own capacity,recognition for what we do, recognition for who weare and what we want to do. This has very little todo with the quality of the nonprofit partners but ismore about us being able to identify what we wantto do. In addition to which working with some of thelarger organisations, a substantial amount of whatyou put into the pot goes into their administration.We think we can do a lot more doing it ourselves.”Companies who seek to develop some degree ofprogrammatic input and content for implementationthereby going beyond the frontiers of traditionalphilanthropy often do so by establishing their ownfoundations as nonprofit delivery vehicles as is thecase with Ansa McAl or the telecommunicationsprovider Digicel. Such corporate-driven nonprofitorganisations created for the launch, oversight andmanagement of sustainability initiatives as well asthe area of sponsorship and charitable giving enablecompanies to engage with civil society organisationsin supporting roles while also pursuing their own CSRactivities and formats. The Ansa McAl Foundation’sannual Anthony N. Sabga Caribbean Awards forExcellence are an illustration of the latter.“We support a steelband group andwhen you do that you are doingsome community developmentas well as culture in terms ofthe way we operate with thembecause we are integral partof their organization. We haverepresentatives that sit on theirboard. The role that pan plays in theareas that we support in Laventille,it really helps to bring people offthe streets.”Errol Le Blanc, CEOUnicomer53

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoCHAPTER 3The Third Sector Revisited – Private Sector and Nonprofit PartnershipsCapacity-Development for NonprofitOrganizations through Corporate VolunteeringCase StudyACCA (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) is the global body for professional accountants.We support our 147,000 members and 424,000 students in 170 countries, through a network of83 national offices and centres. ACCA Caribbean is one such national office supporting 22,000members, students and affiliates in the region.While CSR is incorporated into the operational strategy of ACCA, at a national and regional level,the Caribbean office sought meaningful ways in which to impact in a positive way on the widersociety. The challenge was to find an approach closely related to our core business that wouldnot only have the required impact at a social level but also be sustainable. Organisational capacitybuilding among local NGOs was identified as a possible area within which we could make the mostmeaningful impact. Many such agencies provide much needed support to those most at risk inlocal communities, yet are hampered by a lack of access to funding from international organizationsbecause of poor or inadequate financial and administrative record keeping practices. As such, a largenumber of them are not sustainable in the long term.The particular challenges faced by NGOs presented an ideal opportunity for a capacity building exercisebased the premise of skills based volunteering. One within which the accounting and managementskills of ACCA affiliates would be matched with the specific organisational needs of local nonprofitorganisations. Such an intervention could bring long term and sustainable benefit to communitiesby strengthening the capacity of the NGOs that serve them and to ACCA affiliates by providingopportunities to gain important and relevant work experience through volunteer assignments.The pilot phase of this project was launched in March of 2011 and ran for a 6-month period afterwhich an assessment of its success and the possibility of expansion would be examined. Ourdecision to partner with the United Nations Volunteer Programme (UNV) Trinidad and Tobago wasbased on the substantial work they have done and continue to do to raise awareness locally on thearea of corporate volunteerism along with their knowledge of the local NGO sector.In the initial stages, a beneficiary NGO – The Just Because Foundation - was identified becauseof their seemingly immediate readiness for such an intervention. A thorough assessment of theirneeds was then conducted the results of which were used to determine the specific skills requiredfrom the volunteer as well as the deliverables.Once the skill set had been determined, we created a resource pool of affiliates who not onlymatched the skill requirement but were also interested in volunteering. The selected candidatewas subsequently presented with a work plan, a monthly reporting structure and stated deliverableswhich included completed, audit-ready financial accounts for identified periods, an operations manualand a chart of accounts. Monthly review meetings were held and challenges dealt with as theyarose.In conclusion, the project exceeded expectations and provided an excellent template for similarinitiatives in the future.Lesley John, Marketing ManagerACCA Caribbean54

Photo: Daniel Alvarez/ Shutterstock.com“We agree that in pursuit of its legitimate activities the private sector, including both large and smallcompanies, has a duty to contribute to the evolution of equitable and sustainable communities andsocieties.”Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development 200256

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoCHAPTER 4Managing Human Capital through CSR – The Business Case for Corporate VolunteeringManaging Human Capital throughCSR – The Business Case forCorporate VolunteeringCHAPTER 4The field of corporate volunteering and employee engagement has gainedincreasing popularity among CSR managers and sustainability advocates inrecent years. Many corporations in larger markets are placing more and moreemphasis on the mobilization of their employees for social outreach activitiesand environmental conservation programmes and some multinational companieslike IBM or pharmaceutical giant Novartis have even gone as far as undertakingproject-type development work on a global scale sending their staff into remotecorners of the world to utilise their skills outside the domestic corporateframework. 32 CEOs in leading manufacturing hubs and large consumer marketshave increasingly begun to see employees as their companies’ personified socialconscience and it is through corporate volunteers that the business communitycontinues to explore new and more pro-active forms of corporate social outreachdifferent from conventional forms of private sector contributions to society suchas charitable giving.The idea of corporate citizenship haswidened its appeal in many parts ofthe global marketplace and manycompany leaders have begun to realisethat the mobilization of staff forvolunteer projects could sustainablyaddress social needs while paying acommercial dividend in the mediumtolong-term. In the words of CSRscholar Kenn Allen: “Businesses getcredit for what they are contributingto the community and for theopportunities for fulfilment andpersonal development they areoffering their workers while there isalso acceptance that businesses canfairly expect a ‘return on investment’from this commitment. 33In this win-win situation, the benefits ofcorporate volunteerism to communitylife are considerable and it has longbeen recognised that employeevolunteers have the potential to makea significant contribution towardssocial development on communitylevel and therefore to the achievementof national development objectives.The principles and guidelinesenshrined in the 2002 World Summiton Sustainable Development andin the Millennium DevelopmentGoals (MDGs) campaign have beenproviding universal frameworksfor corporate responsibility and, inparticular, the activities of corporatevolunteers. Little disagreement existswith respect to the business benefitsof corporate volunteering. The mosttangible gains are usually being madewithin the company thus formingpart of what is commonly referred toas ‘Internal CSR’. Benefits range fromincreased level of individual motivationof staff to higher rates of retention, agreater degree of innovative practices,strengthened corporate reputationand improved customer relations.In the words of A. Norman Sabga,Chairman and CEO of the AnsaMcAl Group of Companies: “If one ofour organisations, for instance Abeladopted an orphanage in Chaguanas,32 See ‘Big-Hearted Blue’, The Economist, 28th October 2010.33 Kenn Allen, ‘The social case for corporate volunteering’, Australian Journal on Volunteering, Vol.8, No.1, 2003, p.58.57

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoCHAPTER 4Managing Human Capital through CSR – The Business Case for Corporate Volunteering“Benefits of CorporateVolunteering• Provides creativeopportunitiesfor professionaldevelopment• Deepens relationshipwith existing strategicpartners• Builds brandawareness andenhances thecompany’s effortsto be seen as a goodcorporate citizen• Makes a positivedifference in thecommunities inwhich the companyoperates• Employeeswillingly take upthe opportunity tovolunteer one dayevery year for charityor to give back to thecommunity.”Dennis Evans, CEOCitibankgetting our people involved in thatprocess brings them together andcreates a bond in terms of a family.Therefore, you are doing good but youare also building an organization. Sothere is a benefit to us as well. Yes, itmakes us and our employees feel thatwe are giving back but it also buildsa strong bond amongst our people.Working together, playing together,being conscientious together in termsof society and the environment buildsa better team.” Wayne Dass, CEOof credit rating agency CariCRIS,shares a similar belief: “Sometimesthe business benefits of corporatevolunteering are not direct, they comeback in an indirect way. When youstart to get into volunteering, yougo beyond yourself and I think thatdevelops in you a certain mindset, acertain caring about things beyondyourself. I think that then feeds backinto the organization. When you havea person like that coming back intothe organization, these persons, theway they operate, the things they say,the comments that they will make ina team meeting will spread to otherpeople too. It strengthens team work,it widens their network of contacts, itmakes them realize that business doesnot exist in isolation but that there is awider world outside there that one cantap into and bring the benefits of thatexperience back into the organization.”And of course, there is the importantaspect of companies benefiting fromgreater levels of loyalty, dedicationand commitment of their employeesresulting from the fact that oftenCSR programmes and an employer’sattention to the principles of ethicalbehaviour are positively perceived bythe workforce as making a positivedifference in the lives of citizens inneed. In other words, corporate imageimpacts on individual commitment.The personal attitude of CEOs towardsthe very idea of civic engagement andthe personal volunteer history of seniormanagers are important indicators forthe level of acceptance, understandingand support that members of theboardroom are prepared to extendto volunteer initiatives within theirown companies. 85.7% of all CEOsinterviewed for this report wenton record as saying that they hadpreviously volunteered as privateindividuals in support of publicprojects. Such personal involvementwould have sensitized managers to thepublic need for volunteer assistance,to the social and infrastructuralchallenges experienced by manycommunities and to the value of civicengagement for building more stableand inclusive societies (the latter anobvious pre-condition for successfulbusiness operations). Arguably, CEOswho have been exposed to voluntaryaction as private individuals are morelikely to lead efforts of integratingthe principles of an individual aswell as organisational social andenvironmental commitment into theircorporate culture.Have you ever volunteered as a private individual insupport of a public project?14.3%85.7%YesNo58

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoCHAPTER 4Managing Human Capital through CSR – The Business Case for Corporate VolunteeringEven more CEOs responded in theaffirmative when it came to theirpersonal volunteer engagement in thecorporate realm before they becameCEOs. 91.2% had been corporatevolunteers while still being membersof the general workforce beforearriving in their senior positions.At first sight, this high level ofpersonal involvement of CEOs involunteer activities suggests thatsuch commitment must have ledto the emergence of sustainablelevels of corporate volunteerismdocumented in a high number ofvolunteer programmes in the PrivateSector. However, the evidence showsthat company volunteering remainsan activity that takes places largelyoutside of programmatic frameworksand with little or no connection tocore business activities. In response tothe question about the existence of anofficial volunteer programme withintheir companies, only 37.1% of allCEOs were able to confirm that their‘corporate culture of caring’ entailedoperating a stand-alone volunteerprogramme with 62.9% answering‘no’. This figure presents a slightincrease from the 24.7% of companiesthat had confirmed the existence ofsuch a programme in the 2010 UNVSurvey on Corporate Volunteering inTrinidad and Tobago.The considerable personal involvementof CEOs in volunteer activities eitherprivately or in the corporate realm thusdoes not equate to a greater degreeof ‘professionalisation’ of volunteermanagement or to the adoptionof a more programmatic approachtowards employee engagement. Inother words, the individual exposureof CEOs to volunteerism doesnot translate into the creation offully-fledged corporate volunteerprogrammes on an organisationalHave you ever volunteered in your role as anemployee before you came CEO?8.8%91.2%YesNolevel. Many corporate volunteerinitiatives remain ‘one-off’ and ‘adhoc’activities in nature with staffcontributions that do not necessarilyrequire specialised technical skillssuch as beach-cleanings or thepainting of orphanages, homes for theelderly etc. As Noel Pemberton, CEOof energy company Ten Degrees NorthLtd. says: “It’s done very informally. Imay not even know about it. It’s donebut there is no structured programme.It’s more internal than external. It’s notformalized but I know it is happening.”CEOs may well buy-in to the argumentabout the social value of employeevolunteering but may not necessarilysee the business benefits in suchactivities or realise their importancefor the development of a distinctcorporate culture. This may explainwhy the majority of companies havestill not filled the gap of establishinga programmatic framework forvolunteering, something that wouldrequire a considerable level of resourceallocation and the development ofstrategies, governance structures,training programmes and projectmanagement portfolios. Within theDoes your company operate a corporate volunteerprogramme?62.9%37.1%YesNoone-third of companies that operatean official corporate volunteerprogramme, 64.3% of CEOs wereinvolved in their development andimplementation.Some CEOs have stressed that eventhough senior management may seethe value of employee volunteering,any more structured efforts toestablish volunteer managementprocesses within the company arelikely to encounter certain challenges.Daniel Scott, CEO of Anthony P.Scott, explains: “Most people wantto do something. But there are twoproblems. One is that they don’t knowwhat to do and secondly, once youdo it regularly, it tends to fall apart.Once the sacrifice needs to be made interms of time for example, it seems toa lot of people that it is cheaper to payfor others to help than to volunteerthemselves.” Other CEOs in expressingconcern with regards to developing anofficial volunteer programme withintheir company are more focusedon the aspect of industrial relationsas a possible stumbling block forcorporately driven volunteer activities.Robert Lazzari of Agostini Insurance59

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoCHAPTER 4Managing Human Capital through CSR – The Business Case for Corporate Volunteering“To say that we havea formal volunteerprogramme in place nowthat would recognizepeople for volunteering,no. But if somebodyis doing somethingextraordinary and theirname is submitted tothe CSR Committeerecognition will be given tothem. It’s a very informalarrangement that we haveright now. But we wouldnot prevent any staffmember who has cometo us with a project thatwill require him to investtime from work, we wouldnot deny that. We wouldsupport it in as many waysas we can.”Michael Aboud, CEOAmalgamated Security Ltd.Brokers Ltd. is frank in the descriptionof his worries: “I don’t think I wouldwant to go too far with my staffin terms of volunteering becauseinvariably the unions will use thatagainst you when you negotiate withthem. They will say our staff did that(i.e. the volunteering) for the companyand for your positive image when theyIf so, were you involved in its development andimplementation?35.7%64.3%YesNowent and painted that school this yearand they will say you really shouldgive us 16 percent of a pay rise eventhough we agreed on a 15 percentsettlement prior. Or they would comeand be telling you that having hadstaff volunteering over the weekend,we really should pay them overtimebecause the employees would havebeen representing Agostini and notthemselves. So I rather encourage mystaff to volunteer in the sense that ifyou live in a community with a schoolor something similar that needs helpthen go and help.”At the same time, even skepticalCEOs are inclined to revisit the issueof corporate volunteering in thefuture. Robert Lazzari again: “Maybeit’s a selfish and a silly way. Maybe Ican do more within this company topromote and encourage my staff to getmore involved in social things. Theonly time this happens is when theCancer Society has a walk and I amgiving a cheque to this organizationand I am buying jerseys for everybodyand I say let’s put together a team offifty colleagues to walk around thesavannah. My staff loves that. Butto say that I really have my staff somotivated and aware that I can saylet’s do something social because wework with SERVOL, I haven’t got tothat level and I know that that’s anarea that I should probably spend a bitmore time on.”While the development of skills asa tangible ‘take away’ of corporatevolunteering is being increasinglyrecognised by foreign managers andCSR practitioners, CEOs in Trinidadand Tobago have retained somescepticism as to the skill-buildingeffect of staff volunteerism. SaysJason Freakley, Managing Directorof Scrip J Printing Ltd.: “I have neverthought of employees as developingskills on these projects. I would havemore thought of what kind of skillsdo they have already that they cancontribute to these projects. And whatI would have seen is more of a positivecontribution by the organisation andits staff with them being happy to dothose things and that sense of wellbeingand contribution I would havethought would come of it. I neverthought of them getting additionalskills out of it.”60

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoCHAPTER 4Managing Human Capital through CSR – The Business Case for Corporate Volunteering“When new employeesare coming in, theybecome part of oursocial events club. Asmembers of this club,they are automaticallyinvolved in the annualactivities. We don’t havea structured approachtowards volunteeringthough. When we havesomething coming upwe send out a memo.”Eric Kipps, CEOJaric Ltd.61

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoCHAPTER 4Managing Human Capital through CSR – The Business Case for Corporate Volunteering“And if you don’t careabout young people thelevel of investment willbe reduced because ifyou are a society that isplagued with crime, ifyou have a society that isplagued with dishonestythen investors don’twant to come and investhere. If I want to expandmy business and I amlooking for a businesspartner, you think youwant to come and investin an environment wherehis employees could berobbed or murdered?What I am saying is letus help our communitiesto help themselves tobecome better citizensand we will build ourbusiness through that.You can’t run a businessjust for now. Take care ofyour community and theywill take care of you.”Ron Milford, CEOUnipetOutlook – The Road AheadRather than just being the personalpet project and an expression ofenlightened self-interest on the partof a few selected entrepreneurs,CSR has the potential to become aneffective tool in the hands of corporatecompetitors, investment promoters,government officials and developmentspecialists. Especially after theturbulences of the internationalfinancial crisis in 2008, investmentcapital is increasingly gravitatingtowards ‘safe havens’ making a wellbut not over-regulated environmentin terms of sustainable managementprinciples the destination of choice.In this context, the development ofstructures, guidelines, policies andprinciples needs to be as collectiveand inclusive a stakeholder effort aspossible. Private sector and publicsector, members of the businesscommunity (particularly CEOs) andgovernmental decision-makers needto pool their resources and jointlyspearhead new developments for thegreater institutionalization of CSR. Therecently signed UNDP/MTI projectfor the development of a nationalCSR policy is an important step in theright direction. This initiative couldeither help to prepare an even moresubstantial piece of legislation orsimply serve as an enabling operationalframework that will provide incentivesto initiate behavioural changeand establish standards of goodcorporate citizenship. The good newsemerging from this report is thatCEOs are overwhelmingly in favourof government participation in thepromotion and development of CSR.CEOs are the ‘chief architects’ ofcorporate strategy. In going forward,they now need to engage more activelyin the greater integration of CSR intocompany strategy and to lead effortsamong stakeholders to push aheadwith the transition from philanthropicsupport for small-scale socialdevelopment initiatives, sportingevents and musical performancestowards a closer alignment ofWho in your company initiates, develops and manages the CSR activities and projectsincluding corporate volunteerism?80.0%70.0%60.0%67.6%50.0%40.0%35.3%30.0%20.0%10.0%0.0%14.7%23.5%8.8%17.6%0.0%CEOSeniorManagementHead ofHRHead ofCorporateCommunicationsHead ofCommunity,Governmentand ExternalRelationsCSRCommitteeHead ofBusinessDevelopment62

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoCHAPTER 4Managing Human Capital through CSR – The Business Case for Corporate Volunteeringsustainable management practiceswith core business processes, keycompetencies and target audiences.CEOs are crucial for the success oftheir companies’ CSR programmes.In their majority, they have alreadystepped up their involvement insustainability activities and haveshouldered responsibility forinitiating, developing and managingCSR projects.It is the CEO who sets the tone fromthe top on questions of corporateculture and identity, strategicdirection and social positioning andit will be the CEO who needs todrive the essential shift from CSR asan issue of reputation managementto CSR as an issue of strategicmanagement. Greater sensitization ofsenior managers is required and majorCSR stakeholders such as Trinidadand Tobago Chamber of Industryand Commerce (TTCIC), EnergyChamber, Arthur Lok Jack GraduateSchool of Business and Trinidad andTobago Manufacturers Association(TTMA) need to specifically engagemembers of the boardroom on issuesof knowledge transfer, Best Practiceresearch and the participation inpeer exchange platforms such asworkshops, symposia and conferences.While in this survey, the majority ofCEOs asserted that CSR was ‘critical’for the commercial success of theircompanies, the reality continuesto throw doubts on the level ofconviction that underpins suchexpressed beliefs. The list of items onthe ‘still-to-do-list’ is substantial. The‘public relations element’ remains afundamental feature of companies’CSR practice in Trinidad and Tobagoand the incorporation of sustainableapproaches into strategic planningprocesses continues to be weak.Managerial performance is often notlinked to the implementation of CSRactivities and the area of supply chainmanagement has still not sufficientlyabsorbed sustainability criteria into itsoperational matrix. In addition, CEOshave a crucial role to play in ensuringthat the company reports regularly onits corporate responsibility portfolioeither as a section integrated intothe annual report or in a standalonefashion via the publication of asustainability report.Understanding commercial successand social progress as two sides ofthe same coin remains a challenge inTrinidad and Tobago. Michael Porterhas sought to reconcile these twodimensions in a conceptual frameworkthat places the idea of multi-layeredvalue creation at the heart of corporateoperations in the social realm. “Thesolution lies in the principle ofshared value, which involves creatingeconomic value in a way that alsocreates value for society by addressingits needs and challenges” he writesand goes on to say that “businessesmust reconnect company success withsocial progress. Shared value is notsocial responsibility, philanthropy, oreven sustainability, but a new way toachieve economic success. It is noton the margin of what companies dobut at the center.” 34 It is precisely sucha shift that the local Private Sectorin Trinidad and Tobago still needsto undergo and CEOs are crucial toinitiate such change.While structures and an enablingenvironment are importantfacilitating factors for CSR, individualleadership matters equally both insidethe company and outside. Particularlyin the area of alliance building andinter-sectoral partnerships, CEOsshould become more directly involvedin determining the overall directionof their companies and – on anexecutive level - get involved in theprocess of identifying nonprofit andvoluntary sector organizations thatpromise lasting synergy effects in theimplementation of social outreachprogrammes and projects. Yet again,the low profile of senior managersand company owners with regardsto questions of partnering finds itsexpression in the fact that only onethirdof all interviewees regardedcivil society as a key driver in theirdecision-making process. Arguably,the capacity limitations of civil societyorganizations to engage Private Sectorpartners in social and environmentalinitiatives are considerable butCEOs should lead corporate effortsto find innovative ways to addressprecisely those shortcomingsthrough assistance in the area oforganizational development. Therecently concluded corporatevolunteer project implemented by theAssociation of Certified CharteredAccountants (ACCA) in partnershipwith the United Nations VolunteerProgramme (UNV) and in support ofthe Diego Martin-based Just BecauseFoundation (JBF) has demonstratedthe value of strengthening the NGOsector’s organizational capacity and indoing so, to improve the level of servicedelivery through nonprofit providers.CEOs have an important lead role toplay in this regard and should be partof the process of partnership buildingfrom as early as possible a stage on.One dimension that this report hasnot specifically addressed is the issueof CSR among Small and MediumEnterprises (SMEs). Based on thefindings of the 2008 Mapping Report,SME’s posed a considerably greaterchallenge to the community of CSRadvocates than large national andmultinational companies. Not onlydid experience demonstrate the needfor making a convincing business34 Michael E. Porter, Mark R. Kramer, ‘Creating Shared Value’, January 2011, Harvard Business Review, http://hbr.org/2011/01/the-big-idea-creating-shared-value; also in Michael E. Porter, Mark R.Kramer, ‘Strategy and Society – The Link Between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility’, Harvard Business Review, December 2006, pp.78-92.63

The View from the Boardroom - CEO Study on Corporate Social Responsibility in Trinidad and TobagoCHAPTER 4Managing Human Capital through CSR – The Business Case for Corporate Volunteeringcase for the social involvement ofSMEs to company owners in this stillfamily-business-dominated sector.It also highlighted the question ofSMEs’ internal capacity-relatedlimitations for the implementation ofprogrammatic CSR activities. Evenmore important in smaller corporateenvironments, the CEO’s personalinvolvement and his/her knowledgeof and backing for sustainabilityprogrammes provide the operationalbasis for anything that happenswithin the company. The success offuture advocacy efforts among SMEsin Trinidad and Tobago cruciallydepends on the ability of CSRpromotingorganizations to securebuy-in for the idea of social outreachand environmental engagement fromsenior business leaders and membersof the entrepreneurial class.Finally, corporate volunteeringremains one of the most promisingsub-fields of CSR both globally as wellas in the local context of Trinidadand Tobago’s Private Sector. As inthe aforementioned areas of CSR,CEO leadership is crucial for themobilization of employee volunteersand the sustainability of volunteerprogramme. CEOs should bepersonally involved in the process ofprogramme development as well asproject execution providing financialsupport, contributing personal ideasand suggestions and mobilizing andmotivating employees by way ofleading by example. Once CEOs fullyunderstand the business value thatvoluntary employee engagement cangenerate, their interest in developingthe company’s social engagementportfolio will be significantlyheightened. In other words, thequestion is if T&T-based CEOs believethat instead of feeling that they havean “obligation to give back” as close to60% of their U.S.-based counterpartsreported in a 2005 survey, 35 corporatevolunteering in their view presentsa value proposition that goes beyondthe confines of public relations andreputational management but ratherimpacts positively on the bottom linethrough its spin-off effects in corebusiness areas e.g. human resourcemanagement.Are you a member of the UN Global Compact?94.1%5.9%YesNoCEOs should also lead theircompanies towards a stronger levelof participation in international CSRinitiatives. Despite the fact that inOctober 2010, the TTMA becamethe official secretariat for Trinidadand Tobago’s local network of the UNGlobal Compact, the world’s probablymost recognised sustainabilitycampaign, only 5.9% of all CEOsinterviewed for this survey declaredmembership in this UN-backed CSRinitiative. Being embedded in regionaland international structures andinitiatives while operating in nationalmarkets would enable CEOs to followdevelopments in other countries,adopt a comparative perspectivewith regards to workable solutionsand benefit from the assistance of aglobal network of Global Compactparticipants.The importance of discoveringone’s own employees as a majordriving force for CSR and the needfor acknowledging the importanceof securing workforce buy-in forsustainable action was alreadyrecognised in the 2008 UNDP/STCIC CSR Mapping Report when itstated that “the commitment of theemployees […] must be ensured by theuse of appropriate means (e.g. ethicstraining, discussion of managementdecisions which involve ethicalrationale, mentorship and promotionof employee volunteerism within theircommunities). 36 In future, CEOs mustbe shouldering more responsibility forindividually leading the mobilizationand recruitment drive for corporatevolunteers. One recent studyconcluded that “companies shouldtap into the enthusiasm, not only toincrease engagement levels amongstaff, but also to gain access to newideas and approaches at every levelof the business”. 37 In ‘harvesting’the creative potential of their staffmembers, CEOs must reach beyondthe confines of the boardroom andsuccessfully rally employees aroundsocial causes that transcend narrowbottom line thinking. Investing evenmore strongly into the promotionof sustainable business solutions,ethical corporate practices andsocial engagement can only benefitall stakeholders involved in themarketplace T&T and will help thebusiness community to fully realise thepotential of its symbiotic relationshipwith the social environment. This maylead to more business leaders agreeingwith Norman Sabga’s philosophy asChairman and CEO of the Ansa McAlGroup of Companies to engage inCSR namely to “give back to societysomething that we have benefitedfrom in terms of being a profitablevibrant organization.”35 Can Corporate Volunteering Support the bottom Line? – The Challenge. The Opportunity. The Case for Investment, LBG Associates, September 2005, p.6.36 UNDP/STCIC Mapping Report, ibid, p.60.37 Corporate Sustainability – A Progress Report, In co-operation with the Economist Intelligence Unit, 2011, p.64