CSR heads in banking industry advised to make national significance

The banking sector was advised to look into the scalability of their future CSR projects that will result in the transformation of stakeholders. This can be achieved via pooling CSR resources and integrating strategies, CSR Sri Lanka Chairman Chandula Abeywickrema said.

According to a survey carried out by CSR Sri Lanka it was revealed that 40 corporates in the country disburse up to Rs. 4 b annually as funds; in which the CSR expenditure of the banks amount to Rs. 400 m.

“So far the CSR projects carried out by corporates are individual non impactful projects. In the pros of doing business it should not just affect only a small group of people. For instance if the Rs. 400 m which is spent annually by the banking sector, was put together and was executed to do a few projects that’s nationally impactful, it will have far greater reach,” Abeywickrema added.

Noting that CSR Sri Lanka does not believe in the annual CSR awards, he told the Daily FT that the biggest challenge is to move banks to engage together to deliver impactful outcome.

“Today some banks are slowly moving out from the isolated CSR initiatives. We are trying to tell the industry to move out of that awards mentality gradually and do something better and bigger to the stakeholders.” 

Citing an example he stated that Lehman Brothers was a leading bank, which won six awards for their CSR activities. Today they’re not in the business; this shows that winning awards is just a supporting aspect. 

He revealed that the next step the organisation is concentrating is the construction industry.

“We are taking industry by industry. Our next objective is to bring all the players in the construction industry. This was another sector that has had some issues regarding their CSR activities and sustainability.”