Slovak Business Leaders' Forum / Pontis Foundation

  • Focus on a Partner - October 2009

Beata Hlavčáková, CSR Program Director of Slovak Business Leaders' Forum, discusses in this month's interview CSR trends, topics and awareness in Slovakia, and further talks about the role of education in promoting CSR.

In your opinion, what are the main CSR topics and trends amongst companies in Slovakia at the moment?

As all around the world, Slovak companies face diminishing demand and try to be as much cost effective as possible. This influences all processes of companies, benefits provided to their employees and surrounding communities. Companies are more carefully considering activities related to CSR and philanthropy and with a lower budget they focus on their most strategic activities and long term projects that have a longer history and the positive impact. Companies continue e.g. in volunteer engagement of employees, not only for doing something for a good cause but also as a tool for team building. New activity that was proposed by CEOs of BLF is reporting of their CSR activities. I am glad that 40% of BLF members did a CSR report and reporting of 25% of members has been based on GRI principles.

Slovak BLF is responsible for a large numbers of initiatives in Slovakia on different CSR related topics like mobility. How would you consider the level of awareness of citizens on CSR-related issues? What are the most important topics for Slovak citizens?

Based on survey we run a year ago, the awareness of the term CSR among Slovaks is not high - about 40% but they understand the meaning. The main expectations of Slovaks towards responsible companies are: doing business in ethical way - 51%, suitable working conditions are important for a half of them, protection of environment for a quarter and giving to community for 13% of respondents . Interesting was that when looking for a new employer, a responsibility of the chosen company would be important for 77% of respondents. Two third of respondents declared they consider a responsibility of the producer when buying new products or services.

As highlighted by the project "Enabling a better environment for CSR in the CEE the major obstacles felt by Slovakian businesses in the adoption of CSR are overall costs and the absence of a proper regulatory framework. What kind of action and role is the Slovakian government playing to incentivize companies in the uptake of CSR?

Well, as for now, the Slovak government has not adopted any strategic document to support companies to implement CSR initiatives. Even thought we participated last year on an initiative of working group consisting of different stakeholders who prepared a National CSR strategy for Slovakia. Unfortunately, this document was not adopted by any Ministry of Slovak Government. As for now, CSR is promoted in Slovakia mainly by NGOs and some multinational companies, many of them organized within Business Leaders Forum.

BLF it's been the first ever in Slovakia to offer and teach University-led courses on CSR managed by Pontis Foundation in cooperation with the Faculty of Social and Economical Sciences at Comenius University in Bratislava. How important is the role of education of young generation in the promotion of CSR in Slovakia?

To implement values of responsibility into businesses it is necessary to implement these fundamentals into the heads of future managers who will take decisions on how to run a business. In Slovakia we have a proverb "fish smells from a head" that means the business is as much responsible as its top manager. Therefore we consider education of future managers to be a very important part of spreading CSR ideas. Apart from the course, we organized in cooperation with the Economical University and BLF companies a one week long Summer school of CSR for a group of student.

More information

Read more about the Pontis Foundation at www.nadaciapontis.sk

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