Many of you might still be a little confused by the term CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) or simply corporate citizenship, it is more than merely a fancy term to advocate business consciousness.

Let us tell you, there are deeper implications behind CSR than just corporate philanthropy. Although CSR does involve philanthropy, it’s not just about the occasional sponsorships and donations. Rather, CSR is just plain common sense and it has quite the underlying impact. We are moving towards a new era when it comes to truly embedding CSR into our BMMI DNA and everything we do, whether that may be:

• Promoting business continuity and sustainability
• Promoting innovation and fueling our competitive advantage
• Mitigating operational impact and associated risks
• Developing our human capital and talent pool
• Supporting internal and external relationships
• Aiding succession and future planning

The CSR perspective

The world is moving away from the time where ‘green-washing’ was tolerated. For those who are not familiar with the term, it’s a ‘green’ PR / Marketing strategy used to falsely promote the perception that a specific organisation’s products or policies are environmentally sound.

Indeed, with recent scandals facing large corporations due to poor risk management and lack of transparency - we now know more than ever before the importance of CSR due diligence. At any given time, any company may be under fire from external stakeholders and organisational ‘watchdogs’ who will put all your operations under a microscope. This is not only detrimental reputation wise but can also cause serious financial damage. Consequently, corporate leadership is increasingly concerned with the challenges facing both mankind and the planet -whether that may be issues surrounding climate change, natural resource scarcities, global water shortages, widening economic disparities, social unrest, demographic changes causing talent shortages, and so forth.

An approach of sharing

Benefiting the community whilst generating profit is at the essence of any strategic CSR initiative. In fact, tapping into serving those who are economically marginalised or are at the bottom of the pyramid will prove to be quite lucrative business in the future. The massive growth in socially responsible investment is one example of how the industry is shifting. At BMMI, we are hoping to re-focus our investments specifically towards education and strategic youth empowerment.

We are on the right track in terms of managing our environmental (including quality, health and safety, food safety) aspects – thanks to our IMS department who is doing a great job guaranteeing that everything is accounted for and achieving standards for different divisions including recently, our restaurants. But there is a lot of work that needs to be done it terms of truly embedding CSR in all our operations and at the core of our different departments. This is our 2020 goal. We aim to drive our triple bottom line, as sustainable development remains to be the most superior CSR concept.

Scope and implementation

Since our previous stakeholder engagement with the business units and CSR partner 3BL, various recommendations have been listed and discussions have commenced with departments like HR and IMS.

We are gaining momentum and are well on our way towards establishing a comprehensive CSR plan. If you are interested in our current CSR endeavours, below is a list of initiatives we are working on in collaboration with other departments:

• Prioritising sustainability / CSR recommendations
• Implementation planning with different departments
• Tackling diversity and inclusion in the workplace
• Proposing a plan for setting up a diversity council
• Reactivating our status as a UN Global Compact signatory
• Publishing our Communication on Progress report
• Re-launching our Code of Business Conduct
• Drafting a Supplier Code of Conduct

A big thank you to IT Manager Aiman Alorayedh for nominating Mohammed Al Ameer as the IT department’s CSR champion. We greatly appreciate the help gentlemen!

Stay tuned for further updates!