Tuesday Nov 26, 2024
Tuesday Nov 26, 2024
Thursday, 18 July 2013 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
By David Ebert
The 174-year-old Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (CCC) announced the launch of the 10th consecutive Best Corporate Citizen Sustainability Awards at a media briefing on Monday, held at the CCC Auditorium in Colombo.
The objective of the awards is to recognise corporate sustainability in Sri Lanka and to encourage businesses to adopt best practices in order to utilise the proper processes and systems that would ensure efficient use of resources in the creation of their goods and services.
The awards will this year look to garner an increased participant interest with changes made in the entry criteria to accommodate smaller corporates with the inclusion of two categories and a larger number of award totalling 30. As stated in the official entry criteria, Category ‘A’ will be open for “any company/enterprise from the public or private sector, including group companies with a turnover of Rs. 15 billion or over,” and Category ‘B’ for “enterprises with a turnover below Rs. 15 billion.”
Along with the main Best Corporate Citizen Award in both categories ‘A’ and ‘B’, some of the other awards to be handed out this year have been broken down into three sector awards for environmental, social and economic sustainability, along with nine category awards in the areas of environmental management, integration and value-addition, employee, customer and community relations, as well as governance, financial performance and economic contribution.
In addition, the Best Sustainability Project awards will also be handed out in the categories of education and training, north and east reconciliation, environment, infrastructure and other projects. Another new inclusion this year will be the Grand Slam Award, which will go to any corporate entity that wins the Best Corporate Citizen Award five years running and was included this time around to encourage repeat participation as well as to motivate companies to continue their corporate sustainability practices.
Speaking at the briefing, CCC Secretary General Harin Malwatte reflected: “The past 10 years reflect a turning point in the field of corporate citizenship in Sri Lanka. The Best Corporate Citizen Sustainability Award has continuously spotlighted successful and replicable models of important positive business impact on people, communities and environment. We believe that in pioneering the awards, we have created role models among industry leaders who have excelled in social and community initiatives.”
Summing up the evaluation system and the changes made this time around, Chairman of the Panel of Evaluators for the 10th year running Dr. Saman Kelegama said: “This is the 10th year of this award and over the years, we have made various modifications to the evaluation system and now, we have brought in this concept of sustainability in a significant way to the entire evaluation system.
“As all of you know, sustainability has three major components – the economic side, the social side and the environment. So all three areas get equal marking in the evaluation process and under these categories we take into account the way a company operates and how it reacts vis-a-vis 
the stakeholders in its operating environment. This basically boils down to the environment, the whole area of the community, the customers, the governance structure and so on.”
Kelagama also noted that the entire structure of the awards has been designed to leave no room for bias as the event is held minus corporate sponsorships and with a completely independent evaluation panel working under strict confidentiality. In addition, Kelegama dismissed the notion of smaller corporates being intimidated by larger corporates with bigger spending power due to the division of the entry categories into turnover.
The awards ceremony will be hosted by the CCC on 26 November 2013, with entries open till the closing date of 27 September 2013.
Pix by Lasantha Kumara
