Corporate Social Responsibility

What is CSR?

There is no single commonly accepted definition of Corporate Social Responsibility. The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (2000) integrated aspects of the concept of sustainable development in its definition, “the continuing commitment by business to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as of the local community and society at large”. CSR principles “cover issues including human rights, labour rights, ethical business practices, communications and community involvement”.

CSR is the cognitive process of an organisation to proactively view all those associated with its commercial activities in a manner which respects and nurtures all peoples with whom it interacts, impacts on and delivers for, while striving to improve the environments in which all its activities take place and beyond. This cognitive organisational process needs to become the core ethos within the company to “do good” to all those who it or its products or services come in contact with and to mitigate the risk of “not doing good” along the journey to achieve its corporate objectives.

CSR is an evolving business practice that incorporates sustainable development into a company’s business model. It has a positive impact on social, economic and environmental factors and develops the relationship between business and society that does not treat corporate growth and social benefit as a zero-sum game.

Veon’s consultants have facilitated the development of CSR among a number of corporate clients to develop strategies designed to achieve greater compliance with the concept of CSR and embed it within their overall strategic corporate intent.

Society expects business to be a vehicle for sustainable development and CSR has evolved to align business’s responsibilities with the needs of those stakeholders whom it serves in a wider context. With the advent of globalisation, companies need to prioritise and connect to the societal environment in a more interactive and demonstrably responsible manner as governments, activists and social media have become adept at holding companies to account for the social consequences of their actions.

Companies need to analyse their individual commercial activities to identify the most appropriate CSR opportunities for them to adopt and create a worthy strategy to encompass and develop the ethos of CSR to create a long-term source of innovation and competitive advantage for their business. By wholeheartedly embracing the ethos of CSR, companies will protect their market share and develop greater customer loyalty.

CSR is an ethos and not a sub-set of a Public Relations campaign designed to avert the public away from a crisis or an activity to control or limit reputational damage. Societal expectations of business responsibilities broaden as a society passes through the phases of economic development and these expectations influence the regulatory framework in which companies operate.

CSR and Forestry

It is important that CSR practices be based on significant input from local stakeholders rather than dictated by external forces to ensure that CSR programmes are specifically developed for local context. Different societies interact with nature in different ways and in the past many forest-based communities were negatively impacted by the commercialisation of forest resources.  Hence a locally focused approach is crucial to ensure congruence with CSR best practice and Veon ensures that its approach is tailored individually for each client’s forestry activities.

The characteristics and functions of forestry in carbon sequestration, maintaining ecological stability, renewable energy and promoting social wellbeing play an important role in sustainable economic development. A CSR approach to forestry yields social and environmental and economic benefits and is an effective way for businesses to fulfil their societal obligations.

The evaluation of corporate social responsibility is mainly through the public’s observation of the company’s activities which are either marketed through traditional methods or with increased visibility and scrutiny through social media channels.

CSR Forestry Investment

Actively fulfilling environmental responsibility is the necessary step for companies to realize sustainable development. Forestry projects which Veon helps design and implement on behalf of its corporate clients, adhere to CSR principles which require compliance with national environmental laws and regulations, the establishment of appropriate and sensitive forest management planning; increased investment in environmental protection, and the protection of the environmental demands of stakeholders by placing environmental benefits at the core of the forestry investment.

Forestry has important ecological and economic value and if appropriately managed, will visibly enhance the corporate social responsibility value of the company.

The primary concept of CSR forestry investment is the application of economic interests and social, environmental, ethical, legal and other factors to the evaluation as an important basis for forestry investment projects.

Traditional forestry investment value is the core of economic value evaluation and cannot fully reflect the comprehensive value evaluation target of social responsibility investment. Therefore, it is necessary to analyse each forestry investment project from the perspective of social responsibility and combine its economic value, ecological value and social value. Veon ensures that such forestry investment can deliver commercial returns to the investors while improving the natural and societal environments through carbon sequestration and additional biodiversity.

To fully benefit from public perception of a CSR forestry strategy, companies should be focussed on a CSR ethos-based approach to all their corporate activity rather than the simple compliance with a regulatory approach. Corporations need to place strategic environmental and societal benefits to the fore rather than focus their attentions solely on profitability at the expense of the former.

Corporate enterprises have generally accepted the need for social responsibility and the fact that environmental protection is part of that responsibility and forestry provides CSR-oriented companies with an ideal commercial activity to meet their requirements and a visible commitment to environmental protection through SFM practices and certification.

Sustainable Forest Management

Veon is committed to Sustainable Forest Management, which, under EU guidelines is defined as: “The stewardship and use of forest lands in a way and at a rate that maintains their productivity, biodiversity, productivity, regeneration capacity, vitality and their potential to fulfil now and in the future relevant ecological, economic and social functions at local, national and global levels and that does not cause damage to other ecosystems.” Sustainable forest management provides numerous social, environmental and economic benefits, some of which include:

• Forests and forest products play an important role in combating the impacts of climate change. Forests help reduce climate change effects by reducing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Trees absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere for growth, convert it to sugars and wood and release oxygen back into the atmosphere. Harvesting trees before they die naturally (and return their carbon to the atmosphere) locks the carbon into the wood. Wood is also a low carbon source of fuel and using wood and wood products for construction and biomass burning releases much less carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere than conventional fossil fuels e.g. coal or oil. Forests also provide shade and cool waters and soils, and help to control and prevent flooding events by slowing the flow of rainfall to watercourses.
• Forests contribute in a very significant way to biodiversity and habitat variety that is important for a healthy landscape, ensuring ecosystem services, such as pollination, supporting agriculture and food production.
• Veon endorses the principles of Sustainable Forest Management as defined by PEFC below: Given the importance of forests to the planet, sustainable management is essential to ensure society’s demands do not compromise the resource. Sustainable forest management offers a holistic approach to ensure forest activities deliver social, environmental and economic benefits, balance competing needs and maintain and enhance forest functions now and in the future. Forest certification is the tool to prove this and to connect the consumer with the sustainable origins of their products.

The three pillars of sustainability

Sustainable forest management creates outcomes that are socially just, ecologically sound and economically viable – the three pillars of sustainability.

We cannot separate, compartmentalize or address individually these pillars. If one pillar is missing, we cannot protect our forests, forest-dependent communities and rural economies cannot thrive, illegal logging will not be abated and development opportunities will not be captured.

PEFC ensures that national sustainable forest management requirements are always tailored to the needs of the specific forest ecosystems, the legal and administrative framework, the socio-cultural context and other locally relevant factors.

However, all national sustainable forest management requirements must include the following:

• Maintenance, conservation and enhancement of ecosystem biodiversity
• Protection of ecologically important forest areas
• Prohibition of forest conversions
• Recognition of free, prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples
• Promotion of gender equality and commitment to equal treatment of workers
• Promotion of the health and well-being of forest communities
• Respect for human rights in forest operations
• Respect for the multiple functions of forests to society
• Provisions for consultation with local people, communities and other stakeholders
• Respect for property and land tenure rights as well as customary and traditional rights
• Compliance with all fundamental ILO conventions for worker rights
• Working from minimum wage towards living wage levels
• Prohibition of genetically modified trees and most hazardous chemicals
• Exclusion of certification of plantations established by conversions, including conversions of ecologically important non-forest lands (e.g. peatlands)
• Climate positive practices such as reduction of GHG emissions in forest operations

(Source: www.pefc.org)

Climate Change & Forestry

As more scientific information about global warming accumulates, climate change is emerging as perhaps the greatest environmental challenge of the twenty-first century. What is more, a virtual Pandora’s box of major global threats, such as hunger, poverty, population growth, armed conflict, displacement, air pollution, soil degradation, desertification and deforestation are intricately intertwined with and all contribute to climate change, necessitating a comprehensive approach to a solution. Rising to this challenge will entail unprecedented cooperation among the world’s nations and strong support from international organizations concerned. FAO is particularly implicated, as its domain encompasses major sources of greenhouse gases, major potential victims of climate change, and major mitigation potentials though carbon pools and “sinks”.

Forests have four major roles in climate change: they currently contribute about one-sixth of global carbon emissions when cleared, overused or degraded; they react sensitively to a changing climate; when managed sustainably, they produce woodfuels as a benign alternative to fossil fuels; and finally, they have the potential to absorb about one-tenth of global carbon emissions projected for the first half of this century into their biomass, soils and products and store them – in principle in perpetuity.

(Source: FAO Forestry and Climate Change)