Corporate Social Responsibility - Sustainable Development Policy ...

Corporate Social Responsibilityobligations ensuring corporate responsibility or sustainability hence the CSRadopted is purely voluntary by the businesses.The CSR umbrella holds issues in mainly four categories: environment, social,economic and corporate governance. CSR can be imposed on a voluntary basisby the individual company for its quality requirements, for shareholdersatisfaction or for consumer contentment. In some cases importing or exportingcountries have codes and standards related to corporate responsibility in othersNGOs are the driving force behind CSR discussions and awareness strategies.Also some industries have codes of conduct for instance the EUREPGAP, moreoverglobal standards and codes have been developed to ensure CSR practices arebeing implemented; these include the ISO 14000, SA 8000 or the Global ReportingInitiative guidelines for sustainability.Corporate Governance may be explained as the framework of rules and practicesby which a company ensures accountability, fairness and transparency in acompany’s relationship with all its stakeholders. Some managers affirmed that“we have corporate governance model and all aspects of this model are properly defined accordingto the rules and regulation of the industry”, however, the definition of corporategovernance was found distorted in the investigations for this study.II. CSR in the RegionA manager of a well-know sugar mill criticized boldly that “while the discourse onCSR receives heated panels in most countries Pakistan’s corporate sector is far from contributingto the debate”.CSR is a new specie in the corporate world all over. The concept and itsimplementation are still in an evolutionary phase. Businesses and corporationsare turning to CSR not just out of ethical and social goodness but they areattempting to achieve sustained growth of their operations by pleasing the heartsof the consumers. CSR has become an important part of the business strategy.With rising global competition, it seems vital for businesses to identify uniqueand different ways of ensuring sustaining long term growth. Hence, companiestoday strive to long beyond short term profits in order to assure long termsustainable growth.It must be understood that CSR not only benefits the society at large but in factdirectly provides gains to the companies as well. Many developed nations arey 14