Ukraine Centre for CSR Development

This month, CSR Europe interviews Maryna Saprykina, Executive Director of Centre for CSR Development, on the latest trends of CSR in Ukraine and on the new challenges arising at national political level.

The Centre for CSR Development is one of CSR Europe's National Partners (June 2011) and we were delighted to have the opportunity to learn more about the Ukranian CSR Agenda.

According to a UN survey on “The Social Responsibility of the Ukrainian Business” in 2005, Ukrainian companies rarely and ineffectively monitored the implementation and results of social programs, and the use of proper funds. How would you describe the current situation of CSR in Ukraine? And how does Centre for CSR Development  tackle these issues to enhance the CSR-management of its corporate members?

First of all, I would like to say a “big thank you” for wecloming CSR Ukraine into the CSR Europe family. The Centre for CSR Development is happy to be CSR Europe's Ukrainian National Partner and we are looking forward to good and effective collaboration.

In 2010, Centre for CSR development together with UN Global Compact in Ukraine conducted a new survey to see what changes have been made since 2005. Monitoring and evaluation of the CSR Programs are still to be improved. But we found two very positive results. Firstly, around 30% of companies in Ukraine implement CSR to keep up with the activities of the competition – so CSR is more and more becoming a competitive factor. And the second, more and more companies are now integrating CSR with business strategy, so it becomes a strategic tool.

Regarding measuring, the Centre for CSR Development has prepared a publication on measuring of corporate social investments, and we are now developing training on this. So, let’s hope we will provide the necessary tools for companies to measure their CSR programs - what gets  measured gets done!

As part of the Secretary Council of the “Development of a National CSR Strategy  project”, where do you see the main challenges and achievements in developing the dialogue between the civil society, private and public sector?

Forming a Consultative Council with involvement of different stakeholders on the Development of a National CSR Strategy is a major achievement. The second achievement getting Parliamentary Committee involvement on this. We now have a draft strategy, but there is still a lot to be done in terms of developing a real dialogue. We recently presented a guide for business on how to establish partnerships with public sector, CSOs, Universities and media.  The Centre for CSR Development is now planning how to best work further in this direction.

In 2010, Center for CSR Development organized the first CSR Marketplace under the “Development of the National CSR Agenda” project. Which CSR-topics did you address, what were the main outcomes, and what are the expectations for the next event?

It was a very interesting experience. 31 companies and organizations took part in the first CSR Marketplace, more than 500 people attended the event trying to find out what companies are doing for society. The major topic of the CSR Marketplace was Partnership and we are happy to report that some real good partnership projects appeared as a result of the CSR Marketplace, e.g. now two companies MTS Ukraine, DTEK and Foundation Development of Ukraine are working on the project Tele medicine i.e. making medicine close to people using mobile phones.

Also we organized 4 different session to discuss 'hot' issues of partnership relations: business-media, business-NGOs, business-municipalities, business-Universities. The last session was the most popular one. The previously mentioned Guide on “how to establish partnerships: recommendations for business” was the main output of these sessions. .

Furthermore, we also hostesd sessions devoted to the role of Universities in promoting CSR, Stakeholder Dialogue and discussed status of CSR in Ukraine. Everybody was satisfied with results and expectations for this year are high. The major topic of this CSR Marketplace will be Stakeholder Dialogue and Vision 2020 on Role of Business in society (the Project to be launched on 30th August).

Centre for CSR Development recently launched the Transparency and Accountability Index. Can you please give us a short overview in respect to the methodology and the functionality?

The methodology of this Index was adapted from the Transparency Index  developed by Beyond Business Company, Israel. Elaine Cohen, a famous expert on reporting and HR for CSR, developed this.

We are assessing the 100 largest companies in Ukraine. The final score awarded to each Company is the sum of the points according to the following four dimensions:

  1. Reporting: the presence of a sustainability report on the company website.
  2. Transparency: dimension addresses the degree of disclosure of information relating to the following 11 areas: Business profile and strategy, Governance, CR Management, Ethics and Human Rights, Stakeholder dialogue, Material issues, Workplace, Customers, Marketing and Products, Suppliers and Supply Chain, Community Involvement, Environment
  3. Navigation: assessment of the level of ease with which the reader is able to access all information pertaining to the corporate social  and environmental responsibility of the company
  4. Accessibility: addresses the potential reach of the website from a number of different standpoints, such as language, contact points, blogs, etc

Total score is 100 points. The tool for evaluation is a web-site of the company, so it is completely transparent as many people and organizations can re-check later points obtained by each company. Companies which had no website, or where their website is under construction, are awarded zero points.

The results of the Transparency and Accountability Index will be announced in Sepetember.

 

More information:

Read More about CSR Ukraine at : http://www.csr-ukraine.org/ or http://www.csr-review.net/

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