Best Corporate Citizens to be recognised today

The Best Corporate Citizen Award 2012 organised by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (CCC) for the ninth consecutive year will be held at the Cinnamon Grand on Monday, 12 November 2012.

The Chief Guest at the event will be Anura Priyadarshana Yapa, Minister of Environment, while the Guest of Honour will be Bernard Savage, Head of the Delegation of the European Union to Sri Lanka and the Maldives. The keynote address at the event will be delivered by Biren Bhuta, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) TATA Steel India.

A large number of applications were received from a cross section of the private sector for the Best Corporate Citizen Award and for Best CSR Projects 2012. After careful evaluation of the applications by an independent panel of evaluators and judges, final winners have been selected as the ten best corporate citizens, which will be announced at the awards ceremony.

A number of CSR projects carried out by companies will also be recognised for the contributions they make in areas such as education and training, north/east reconciliation, environment, and infrastructure.

The event will also be the culmination of the first ever Corporate Social Responsibility Week which was held from 7 to 12 November 2012. It which was jointly organised by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, CSR Asia Centre at AIT and the Mangroves for the Future (MFF) Program.

During the CSR week, a number of workshops, seminars, and programs were held. They focused on sharing and learning on sustainable practices on key areas, particularly on coastal resources, which is of great importance to Sri Lanka being an island.

EU-SWITCH-Asia Greening Hotels Awards 2012 will also be presented at the Best Corporate Citizen Award ceremony. The SWITCH-Asia Greening hotels project is implemented by CCC Solutions, the projects arm of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce.

The EU-SWITCH-Asia Greening Hotels Awards aim to recognise and reward the hotels that have achieved enhanced environmental performance through implementation of energy, water and waste management measures, to incentivise more hotels to join the project and to encourage implementation of such practices in the tourist hotel industry in Sri Lanka.

Commenced in 2004 as an award scheme to recognise Corporate Social Responsibility, the Best Corporate Citizen Award has grown adding a number of new categories, and sustainable business practices and CSR amongst local businesses. The award has become a mark of quality for the noteworthy work carried by local businesses as it is awarded by the premier business chamber of the country, the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce.

In 2011 Nestlé Lanka PLC was adjudged as the Best Corporate Citizen, while MAS intimates (Pvt) Ltd. was the 1st Runner Up and Hatton National Bank PLC was the 2nd Runner Up. In the below Rs. 15 b turnover category, the winner was Link Natural Products (Pvt) Limited, while Colombo Dockyard PLC bagged the 1st Runner Up position and National Development Bank PLC was the 2nd Runner Up.

The 10 best corporate citizens in 2011 were Aitken Spence PLC, Aviva NDB Insurance PLC, Ceylon Biscuits Limited, Colombo Dockyard PLC, Hatton National Bank PLC, Link Natural Products (Pvt) Limited, MAS Intimates (Pvt) Ltd., Nestlé Lanka PLC, Singer (Sri Lanka) PLC, and The Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation Ltd. (HSBC).