Organization grants CSR awards

Chinese businesses showed a growing sense of shouldering Corporation Social Responsibility (CSR) in 2013 amid increasing external expectations, said Jiang Zhenghua, honorary chairman of the China Committee of Corporate Citizenship (CCCC), an NPO dedicated to promoting CSR nationwide.

Jiang made the statement during the 9th China Corporate Citizens Annual Conference 2013 in Beijing on Sunday. He also said it forms an important part of realizing the Chinese Dream, proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping, for businesses to be good corporate citizens.

With the theme "CSR in Social Transformation," the conference was jointly organized by CCCC, Finance Channel of China Central Television and the China Foundation of Tencent. It also granted a China Corporate Citizens Award to leading companies in diverse sectors, including Microsoft's YouthSpark, an initiative to create opportunities for youth along with years of assistance to earthquake-stricken Wenchuan by Yihai Property.

Liu Jing, vice director of CCCC said, "CSR doesn't just mean charity or public interest, and it requires companies to actively engage in the solution of society's problems." Liu urged Chinese companies to re-position their relationships with society as China upgrades its economic structure.

The Shangri-la Institute for Sustainable Communities (SISC) also introduced its Water School for a Living Yangtze program, which was initiated in Austria by Swarovski and seeks to educate school students in the area of sustainable resource management.

Liu Yunhua, director of SISC, said the CSR in China is still at an early stage as companies are more active in donations and less involved in social mobilization to build a more civil society.