International CSR Guru Dr. Wayne Visser in Sri Lanka for second time

Monday, 20 April 2015 00:42 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Intentionally acclaimed author of ‘The Age of Responsibility’ and the ‘The Quest For Sustainable Business’ and well-known CSR guru Professor Wayne Visser arrived in Sri Lanka yesterday to conduct three focussed sessions for both the public and private sectors of the country on ‘Transformational CSR’ being the way forward for organisations. His visit, organised by CSR Lanka and supported by the Embassy of the Netherlands, will provide Sri Lankan companies with the opportunity of

learning how to align business struggles with national priorities and global realities. The professor, who was in Sri Lanka last year to address the CSR Conference, said that his main expectation from the visit was to have an opportunity to work with local business leaders and the top management of companies, to ensure they understood the message that CSR today is no longer something to be done on the side in the form of a charitable project but something far more strategic. “CSR is something transformative; to transform society but in order to do that they have to use it as a catalyst to transform the business itself. My main expectation therefore is to see the realisation grow in Sri Lanka that this is actually about doing business differently, about reinventing the business model and making CSR linked to the core of what companies actually do rather than something on the side. So it’s not about what you do with the money once you’ve made it but about how you make the money in the first place,” he said. Dr. Visser’s program, which will kick off on Wednesday 22 April with a breakfast forum for CEOs, will be followed by a session for senior public sector officials on Thursday 23 April on ‘Building platforms to bridge gaps between public/private sectors’ and on Friday 24 April a strategic business session for CSR/sustainability will be held for CSR heads of private sector companies.