CSR & ESG: A year under review from a corporate lens
Consumers have become very socially conscious and pay special attention to how sustainable products are and the practices of a business.Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a self-regulating business model adopted to aid an organisation in being more socially accountable to itself, its stakeholders and the public.
The further shift has been to develop an Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) agenda to, amongst others, track and measure the specific initiatives undertaken under the social agenda for a company. The new focus allows organisations to be conscious of the kind of impact they have on all aspects of society, including economic, social, and environmental.
Driving social initiatives under the ESG agenda is essential for the community and equally valuable for the company. Social initiatives can help boost employee morale, improve the reputation of a company and ultimately drive growth in a sustainable manner.
To ultimately reap the fruits of the aforementioned value, corporations must identify risks within their operations to align their social initiatives within their ESG agenda to mitigate and manage those risks in line with the purpose of the organization as a whole. These programmes can range from environmental impacts, ethical responsibility, philanthropic endeavours, and financial responsibilities.
The impact can be measured through these programs to assess companies’ success beyond bottom-line financial results and may increase stakeholder value.
At ABInBev Namibia, our purpose is to dream big to create a future with more cheers. This in the local context for us means shared prosperity and growth for our communities and our business. We have taken time to assess our initiatives throughout the year and encourage corporates to re-look at the drawing board and evaluate carefully to help impact communities in 2023.
The impact on community members can be evaluated in many ways depending on company metrics but the end goal should remain its sustainability and ability to produce more impact from its initial seed investment. For our business, it is important that while we grow our business responsibly, we create initiatives to drive responsible consumption of our products and promote inclusive growth and sustainable livelihoods across our value chain.
To address road safety and encourage responsible consumption, we launched the campaign with inDrive and equally drove consumer consumption by adding voluntary guidance labels on our locally made products. Small and medium-sized businesses play a critical role in economic development by generating employment and contributing toward innovation.
As a corporate citizen, we believe in the power of long-term and sustainable partnerships. This is important to us as we want to be part of the solution in the communities we operate in. It is for this reason that it was an excellent and exciting opportunity to partner with the Namibia Investment Promotion and Development Board (NIPDB) for the inaugural K2G NextGen showcase held in Tsumeb. This serves as a basis to continue driving programs to be tracked in line with our ESG agenda.
Going in to planning for 2023, the new year is an excellent opportunity to align commercial strategies with social initiatives to drive measurable impact for Namibia.
*Alexanderie Basson is AB InBev Namibia’s Legal and Corporate Affairs Manager.
**Opinion pieces and letters by the public do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial team. The editors reserve the right to abridge original texts. All newspapers of Namibia Media Holdings adhere to the Code of Ethics for Namibian Media, a code established jointly with the Media Ombudsman.