st week, the American Chamber of Commerce held its 4th annual CSR conference.

An all day affair packed with speakers, it was the end that many waited for.  They were finalists for the 2008 AMCHAM CSR award, and some had flown to Shanghai to accept rewards should their firm be the winner.

According to the AMCHAM release:

The 2008 winners were selected from a strong field of 50 projects and 37 companies, both large and small.

and

This year’s competition showed a consistent improvement in the understanding and implementation of CSR in China. Compared with previous years, a growing number of companies have developed mature programs with comprehensive strategies and structures to integrate corporate governance, community outreach, environmental stewardship, and employee health and safety into their core businesses.

the winners:

CSR Excellence in China Award: Intel
CSR Partnership Award: FedEx Express China & ORBIS International
CSR Award for Small Businesses: PMI Shanghai

Special Recognition:
For outstanding achievements in sustainable community development:  Tecsun Homes & Changjiang Civilian Education Foundation
For exceptional and longstanding CSR achievements: Shanghai Pudong Development Bank

When I read this release, I was happy to see that programs I have known and worked with were receiving recognition.  Intel, FedEx, and PMI are all firms that have very passionate employees in the area of volunteering, and their CSR managers are all people whom understand how to develop a high quality CSR program platform.

Where I was a bit troubled though is that this was the first time I begun to ask myself about the credibility of an award was, and what the role of CSR awards should be.

When I first began working with AMCHAM’s CSR committee 4 years ago, there was a real sense that we were in the lead position of something very important, and that through these awards we could promote members to create better programs.  More importantly though, we believed that these awards would also catalyze Chinese firms as well, and that is why we made the decision to include a category for Chinese firms.

However, when looking at the list of finalists, I am not sure this has been done as both Coca - Cola and Mary Kay were previous winners, and Intel, Corning, Cargill, and KPMG have had some of the strongest applications in the past…

So, was the goal of promoting stronger CSR programs really accomplished?

With only 2 Chinese applications, was the second goal of promoting CSR among Chinese firms really accomplished?  Especially as Pudong Development Bank was a previous winner?

Taking that to another level, with 2 of the 5 firms recognized having previously won, does that make their award any more or less credible?  A debate we had often was whether or not previous winners should be considered at all, whether they should be considered in different categories, and if considered, what was the best way to ensure that the same program was not winning over again.

Not trying to take anything away form the winner, who I will again say have great programs, the other issue I had with these awards was that for the 2nd year in a row it was an international charity that won the award. For me, as a manager of an international charity, where I believe this is counter productive is that many of the international NGO - while having good programs - simply do not need the recognition in the same way a Chinese NGO does.  We are able to develop stronger programs as our networks in the international community (where 99% of funding exists) are stronger, we benefit from resources that local NGOs do not have, and arguably.. it is more important to highlight local groups that have developed strong programs, and thus highlight the local capacity that has been developed as a result of AMCHAM’s push into the local community.

In the end, what I hope will come about next year is that we will see a much larger local presence, and a change of the old gaurd.  It is clear that the recent financial issues the world is facing will impact CSR funding, but there are dozens of firms who were not represented (either they did not apply or were not strong enough) that I hope will be.

Last week when I wrote, Get Them When They Are Young, over at Cleaner Greener China I was not planning a follow up post.

However, this morning while walking to work I was reminded of just how important environmental education is, how important it is to teach environmental education, and just how far China has to go. Perhaps one of the most interesting cultural/ fashion statements there is in china, many infants (up to age of 3) will don a set of pants that are split down the middle.  the purpose is simple.. to make doing to the bathroom easier.  No matter where one happens to be.

• Middle of the sidewalk.  Ok
• Middle of the subway platform.  Ok
• Middle of the road.  Ok
• Public park.  Ok
• Apartment Lobby.  Ok
• In front of car.  Ok
• Side of car.  Ok
• From back of bike.  Ok
• While mom holds your legs.  Preferable
• While Grandma holds your legs. Sure
• Dad holds your legs.  odd??

Initially, it was one of those things that you look on with a mix of curiousity and a mix of repulsion.  I once even asked a teacher about this practice, and was given a look that made me think I was asking the dumbest question ever.  Of course babies are allowed to poo and pee on the street… “their poos are special!” However, what I think is important to point out here is that while it may be quick, easy, and convenient for mom, these children are actually learning their first lesson in environmental protection… and I am not talking about compost. As my flatmate in Beijing so appropriatly said “If you teach a kid that they can crap on the street, you have taught them they can do anything they want”. If you think about it, the lesson learned is the ultimate lesson in selfishness.. that it is ok to expect people to walk through my wii (and more).  That one does not need to hold it until the next public toiley… that anywhere it is physically possible to squat IS A TOILET. With that as a foundation, China’s children are supposed to learn not to litter, not to dump chemicals in rivers, to conserve energy, and to think of the impact that one has on the environment… and how that will impact others.

Yours sincerely,

CSR360 Team

In China, one must learn to understand that not everything is as it seems, and that even when something is known… it is not.. and even if it should be known.. it may not be…

In China, it is called an “open secret”, where it does not necessarily have to be published or spoken of on TV… but a lot of people know about it.   Sometimes it is benign, but more often than not it is not.

The recent report Report: China’s animal feed tainted with melamine highlights just how serious the issues underlying “open secrets” can be… and just how dangerous they can be:

Animal feed producers in China commonly add the industrial chemical melamine to their products to make them appear higher in protein, state media reported Thursday, an indication that the scope of the country’s latest food safety scandal could extend beyond milk and eggs.

The practice of mixing melamine into animal feed is an “open secret” in the industry, the Nanfang Daily newspaper reported

for me, this story highlights several huge gaps in China’s system.

1) How is it that a large number of people can be in the know about adding a precursor chemical to milk and dairy, and no one say anything?

2) How is it that leaders of industry, regualtory agencies, and government bodies fail to act when such “open secrets” are so abundant?

At the same time, a story/ condition like this show me the following:

1) “face”  still hold priority over safety - including those who are supposed to be protecting the public

2) There is a dire need for independent parties who inspect products and can warn consumers

Now, I realize that this is a lot to ask, and I do not deny that I am throwing stones at a glass house (my own country just failed to protect our citizens from greed), but in the long run China is going to need to begin proactively steming problems before something goes horribly wrong.  To have an issue of face inhibit a process that protects the general public is not only criminal, it is counter productive, and had the authorities take steps early on the would have actually gained more face.

Our friends at WethicA have released their recent newsletter What Constituents a “Responsible Purchase”?.

It is an important topic for many in China, and it is a topic that has evolved from making sure no children are in the labor pool, to ensuring your painted items are not lead paint based, to develop sustainable practices when designing, manufacturing, and selling products.

If you like the article below,and would like to learn more about their services, you can go to their website here

Most of our customers are western buying companies wanting to improve labor conditions in their supply chain worldwide. Most purchase from other countries besides China extending our work with our clients to countries of some of the following: India, Bangladesh, Mexico, Turkey, Morocco, Romania, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia. Different country conditions often prompts the question “is it a responsible purchase”. Another way to ask the same question is if we should stop working with this country because of its general lack of social awareness.

I have mulled over this question even before becoming formally involved with social accountability and corporate social responsibility. The first time I asked myself this was in Morocco ten years ago. Every week, the prevalent garment industry there dispatched thousands of trucks crossing the Straits of Gibraltar with finished goods to more affluent Europe. It was common to witness Moroccan children climb onto the back of the trucks or trapped themselves amongst the goods to enter Europe despite the fatal risks of lack of water and food during the journey, dangers associated with jumping on moving trucks, and getting caught by law enforcement officers. At this time I felt the responsible approach was to buy things in countries like Morocco where in spite of conditions, it brought jobs to people that needed it. Jobs, however low-end, meant opportunities and could reduce the desperation of these youths risking their lives on those trucks. In the years since, my outlook has shifted dramatically after being exposed to absolutely horrendous working conditions that can not be considered as any type of opportunity except only for owners to exploit their laborforce.I have seen how such harsh and dangerous working conditions have slowly and surely destroyed the physical and mental state of employees leaving a demoralized and hopeless workforce. I am confronted again with the same question if it responsible to work with such factories.

Sure, I can argue the creation of jobs.

But at what cost?

Our experience in many developing countries gives WethicA the tools to analyze this issue extensively. Naturally, some countries have better general working conditions than others. But this by no means automatically assures every factory in “good working conditions” countries are up to those standards or even close, and vice versa with “bad working conditions” countries. More importantly, crucial differences in living costs, government policies and social organization prevents the application of any feasible global benchmark of absolute best or worst. Very often, a good situation in one country is considered a poor one in another. Taking in the overall situation of a country on to its own scale is key to identifying the good factories to use as the benchmark. Returning to the original question: should companies stop buying goods from one country because the general working conditions are worst than other countries? If that is the case, this will halt the potential of any progress, in particular with the good factories, throwing out all hope in achieving real improvement in that country. This can not be a responsible solution either.

Once again, we need to select the best factories with real potential for sustainable improvement based on the individual country’s benchmark, not a global standard. This I feel is the only responsible solution.

The recent Harvard Business School article, Achieving Excellence in Nonprofits, is one of those pieces that should be translated and passed out to every NGO in China.

Building internal governance and structures is often the most difficult task there is.  Developing a consisent plan, learning how to work with a board of directors, developing accounting and financial controls, etc are all issues that many face here… myself included.

To be fair, when managing an NGO in a environment where the role of NGOs is still new, reglations are non-existent, funding is difficult, and getting progams of the ground is the first priortiy (when you are short staffed)… the last thing that many think about are all the things in the back office.

However, as this article highlights, these are the things that long term will set the best NGOs apart from each other.  having a board of directors that can help guide an organization develop plans and relationships, ensuring the organizational books are in order, and having a focus that is clear internally and externally, are all steps that need to be taken to become a mature organization that develops deep programing.

In high-performing SMDOs, the board and executive management team have worked out an agreed and clear set of goals to achieve, have formulated a coherent strategy for advancing those goals, and have organized and are executing an aligned set of actions consistent with that strategy. This takes hard work, discipline, and focus on the part of the board and executive team working together to develop and maintain a coherent and consistent set of visions: a vision of what they are trying to accomplish, a vision of their role in accomplishing it, a vision of the activities and operations they will need to make progress on it. It takes strong communication between the CEO and board, and strong communication with clients, workers, and supporters.

It doesn’t come easy, and it is not a process that is completed overnight.

Well known for pushing the barriers, PETA’s goal of standing up for the rights of our fury friends has no geographic boundaries. during the Olympics, they were able to pull off an ad hoc press conference with athlete Amanda Beard, and more recently they held an event with their Lettuce LAdies in Guangzhou.

For many whose issue is the treatment of animals, China is an obvious focal point. to push their platform forward, organizatoins like PETA (in Shanghai SCAA) must take a different approach, as PETA’s APAC Director discussed in the August interview China can take sexy protests

Q: So edgy campaigns can be effective, even in countries unaccustomed to your approach?

A: While PETA is often seen as pushing the envelope in China, we have found that sexy and progressive campaigns do have a place in the country. PETA’s ad against fur starring a nearly naked Pamela Anderson was rejected in Beijing, for example, but it was eventually approved in Shanghai and went up in train stations and bus stops around the city.

Q: But cultural differences remain?

A: It’s very important for PETA that our events and activities be covered in China. We still campaign like PETA but in ways that also work in the country. That’s why you don’t see some of the more shocking things we’ve done in the West being done in China. We don’t need it and it wouldn’t be accepted.

Mal-nutrition is a threat to school-age children in rural China: the anemia rate is 18%, stunted growth 26% and vitamin A deficiency 44.1%. A national survey shows wide spread deficiency in calcium, iron, and vitamin A.

Taking a tour to the primary and middle schools in rural China, you’ll see many children there who walk several miles from home to school, eat two meals per days with just simple breads, and have no nutrition catering either at home or at school. Those scenarios you will see are separated but intertwined: because children are living far away from the school, it’s difficult for them to manage three meals per day; because the family is generally lack of knowledge in nutrition, children’s parents or grandparents are just providing whatever they think could fill up children’s stomach such as simple breads; school won’t take this responsibility of catering children’ nutrition needs as they are lacking the resource to handle students’ nutrition issue and at the same time might not lack of the incentives to add this into their Education priority. The school mapping policy (merge different spread out village schools into one Centre Township school so that education resource could be more concentrated to improve the teaching quality) has also significantly impacted rural school-age children’s nutrition in-take as many children have to live even further away from home and do not have sufficient in-take of vegetables and dairy products. Parents lack awareness and capacity to ensure children’s nutrition while no investment is made at school to contra balance the issue. Poor hygiene practice and sanitation facilities also further deteriorate nutrition status.

There are different ways to tackle this issue, either through charitable donation or market solution, but both ways would have difficulties to make a sustainable solution. For charitable donation, it would be very difficult for any organization to continuously provide financial support for food supply within the schools. For market solution, the profit margin will be very little if anyone runs a restaurant in the rural schools, not to mention that rural schools are generally lack of basic facility for restaurant business; also profit driven school restaurant might not be able to meet children’s nutrition needs taken into the consideration of the actual price that rural children’s family can afford.

A good solution that some NGO has been trying to provide is to combine the two, charitable donation and market solution, into one model which is replicatable and sustainable. There has been some School Nutrition Program in Western China run by international NGO and it has proved to be quite useful in tackling the nutrition issue in the rural schools. The idea is to first provide cash donation to help build related school facility such as dinning hall and kitchen in the schools and then start a biding process to recruit local people who are willing to run the restaurant business in the school; there should be a control of the number of restaurants who will get the bid as healthy competition will offer more competitive food price for the school students. After the bidding, specific guidelines on nutrition, hygiene and price will be offered to the school restaurants so that students could enjoy healthy and nutritional food with reasonable price every day at school. As for some expensive nutritional food materials such as meats and milks, creative gift program could be set up to provide subsidies for the students, for example through setting up fundraising campaign to encourage the public to ‘Donate a pig to rural school in China’ and ‘Donate a cow to rural school in China’. Different stocks that have been fundraised could later be bred by either the school or the local village households and be sent to the school restaurants to proceed with a cheap and nutritional menu for school students. In this way, a sustainable model with the combination of charitable donation and market solution is created to help the children in rural schools get the necessary nutrition for a healthy growth.

There are also other ideas to think about along this nutrition program such as: collaborating with the local education bureau, educating the local community -specifically children, parents and village representatives, simple and innovative nutrition measurement system that children will self-administer, integrating external experts support, etc.

The sustainability of a program could always mean creating long lasting motives for community members to work towards the single goal, changing people’s mindset for making better decisions, or advocating a successful model to government so that a right policy could be set to benefit the society long-termly on a while. In the process of designing a sustainable program, it’s worthwhile to always bear in mind that profit generating business model could sometimes be more sustainable than one time charitable donation and this could benefit the some program which could take the advantage of the two.

Over my 7 years in China, I have heard more stories of misguided management ethic than I can sometimes bare, but the worst stories of all come out of the food industry (melamine scandals aside).

On multiple occasions, I have read reports of where rival restaurant operators will literally put poison into the food that wil be served at the other restaurant… I guess the logic being that if the clientele gets sick at the rival store, that they will benefit.

While true that  a restaurant with a reputation for poor quality is less likely to succeed,I am absolutely repulsed to see that there are those who actually have so little regard for human life still exist.  That a strategy for dealing with the fact that someone else is more successful can somehow be dealt with by endangering the lives of others.. countless others who were simply trying to grab a bowl of noodles for lunch…. over and over and over and over again.

Now, perhaps at this point I would be better off stopping, but where I am constantly amazed is that people in China are willing to risk everything for so little..so needlessly… and that the life and death decisions of individuals are made without regard for those individuals

I know that is a broad cultural statement that may land me in comment hell, and I’ll agree that these cases are isolated, but it needed to be said..