Business organisations should be encouraged to have CSR policies, says JASTECA President
View(s):The Japan Sri Lanka Technical and Cultural Association (JASTECA) is encouraging businesses and other organisations to have a CSR policy that goes beyond statutory and stakeholder obligations – fulfilling aspirations towards the society, economy and environment, according to JASTECA President Athulla R.F. Edirisinghe, speaking at a media conference held recently.
It was held to announce a set of guidelines for its CSR competition which is to kick off in July this year. The JASTECA CSR Awards are mainly to encourage businesses and other organisations to have a sound CSR policy along with embedded effective structures, systems, processes and commitments. Being a non-profit service organization, JASTECA recently amended the assessment guidelines and best practices for the award.
The amendments to the guidelines were made by a panel of three members for which the chairperson was Chandra Jayaratne, Lal Nanayakkara and Prof. Lakshman. R. Watawala.
“JASTECA was privileged to have the guidelines of an eminent panel of judges to add value to the competition. The organisation is grateful for the chairperson for his inputs to fine tune the CSR Award assessment guidelines and best practices that will be incorporated this year,” said Mr. Edirisinghe.
According to the guidelines of JASTECA, the CSR policy must define areas of concern and initiatives to improve relations with the people and environments affected by business operations and must go beyond stakeholder and statutory obligations in order to fulfill the aspirations towards the triple bottom line in a sustainable manner. The core values of such businesses and organisations whilst vigorously pursuing to maximise shareholder value, should lead to honour ethical values and respect people, communities and the natural environment in their day to day operations.
Since being established in 1984, over 3,500 Sri Lankan managers and executives have been trained in Japan on JASTECA scholarships with the financial support of Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry through the funds secured by Overseas Human Resources and Industry Development Association (HIDA) Japan.
Several leading companies have taken advantage of JASTECA’s links in Japan and Thailand to train their managers overseas under specially designed management training programmes. Annually around 700 to 800 students acquire Japanese language proficiency through the Japanese Language Education Association (JLEA) of JASTECA. (RM)