STING Consultants News 17 August 2009 627 views No Comment  Print This Post  Email This Post

Having systematically assessed the corporate accountability (or corporate responsibility or CSR) efforts of companies, we published the results in the January 2009 LMD. This was not an awards scheme, but a tool for measuring the extent to which companies have built responsible business practices which meet the expectations of stakeholders into the usual way of conducting their business. It also acts as a benchmarking tool companies can use to guide their efforts in improving corporate accountability performance over time. This will enable companies to conduct their business in the best way possible, enjoy the benefits that occur as a result, and contribute towards lasting sustainable development of Sri Lanka as a whole.

In the spirit of encouraging participation, the 2009 Rating did not adopt a hierarchical ranking of companies, but instead classified the rated companies into broad bands based on their progress on implementing a strategic and holistic approach to corporate accountability.

Our conclusion was that corporate accountability is at a very immature level of development amongst Sri Lankan businesses, which further reiterated our belief that most local companies do not realise the immense benefits they can achieve by adopting this internationally established management practice.

Our overall assessment was that there appears to be a lack of strategic thinking vis-a-vis corporate responsibility, and companies are not aware, or else are not concerned, with the need to manage and limit the negative impacts they have on society and the environment. This was evident through analysis of the results, as on average companies performed well in terms of defining corporate values, identifying risks and opportunities and workplace practice, but faired poorly in terms of stakeholder engagement, implementing policies, managing and measuring impacts, and reporting these through structured sustainability reports. This indicated that accountability had not been integrated sufficiently, into the usual daily operations of these companies.

Therefore, for the 2010 report, we intend to systematically asses the 50 largest listed companies based on the LMD 50 and publish the Corporate Accountability Rating early next year. Do look out for that.

Click her for the 2009 report

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