Among them are such major companies as Bangchak Petroleum Plc, GE Money Thailand and Banpu Plc.

"CSR for us is not just a programme or a set of good intentions, but a full commitment, with goals, strategies and accountabilities," said Duke Paradai Theerathada, vice president for communications and public affairs at GE Money Thailand.

The company's CSR consists of two major schemes, the GE Money Wise training programme and the GE Volunteers, the latter of which are can now be found in 50 countries.

Kamolthorn Mukayavongsa, the company's senior vice president for compliance, said GE Volunteers in Thailand participated in more than 20 projects each year, such as teaching English in the Klong Toei slum area or reading to the visually impaired.

The company has also partnered with the Kenan Institute Asia and the Education Ministry, in order to implement the GE Money Wise project within the next three years, which will provide financial management skills and awareness to consumers and youths.

Currently, there are 481 GE Money Wise community members. The programme uses 22 trainers from colleges and universities and 19 GE Money Volunteers who are not GE employees, but rather are certified as Money Wise trainers to educate students in secondary schools nationwide.

To encourage good work by its employees and volunteers, it GE will present the Philippe Awards for the most creative and committed volunteers each year.

Feedback from all of these activities, along with plans for future improvements, will be regularly reported to company executives and shareholders.

Kamolthorn added that everyone from high-ranking executives to lower-level staff in the company would play a role in CSR activities by creating projects and encouraging people to participate.

Global firms first adopted the CSR strategy in 1980. It was introduced in Thailand four years ago and has become popular. Firms like Coca-Cola, Unocal and Nike embraced it along time ago.

Local mining and energy company Banpu Plc has also adopted CSR.

Udomlux Olarn, vice president for corporate communications at Banpu, said her company had given priority to CSR from the day the company was first established. This has been reflected in its promotion of such environmental protection measures as stringent pollution control at its coalmines and power plants from the first day of operations.

She said the company had set up a Rehab Fund for each of its mines, which collects Bt8 for every tonne of coal it sells, with the proceeds funding the rehabilitation and development of areas around its mines. She added that the company's coalmine in Lamphun province, the concession for which expired in 2004, had contributed Bt56 million to the Rehab Fund, while another in Lampang currently has around Bt108 million in the fund.

Banpu mines also employ people in the area as part of the company's contribution to the communities.

Udomlux said the company had promoted CSR in each department. For example, the company's Corporate Communications Department alone spends about Bt10 million annually on CSR activities.

This year Banpu joined hands with the Kenan Institute Asia to provide financial support to the Education Ministry's Lab School project, which was created to upgrade suburban schools to the same standards as major schools inside the cities. Part of the project involves providing financial support for schools to develop their teaching activities or buy educational tools.

The Youth Innova-tion Market-place is another Banpu CSR activity, one that funds selected creative projects developed by teenagers.

Sajin Prachasant, a researcher at Focus on the Global South (Focus), a programme of Development Policy Research, Analysis and Action, said many companies preferred to use CSR, because it proved more effective in promoting their image than did public relations.

Hence, the general public should possess an in-depth knowledge of CSR, in order to learn how companies can exploit this tool.

Some companies' CSR programmes are more involved with environmental and social problems. At the same time, companies may also use it to show the public their capability in handling other problems, as well.

But those companies might reserve their biggest efforts for certain issues while ignoring others they cannot handle. She pointed out that at worst, the issues that were deliberately overlooked might be the very ones that had already caused damage.

One example she gave was the US-based healthcare company Abbott Laboratories, which claimed to have given high priority to CSR. It then declared publicly that it would lower the prices of its anti-HIV medicines 90 per cent, to help people in poor African countries. Yet in reality, such Abbott products had never been available in those countries.

Sajin said CSR still had limitations, because it could not solve structural problems like monopolistic power in determining market prices.

Also, it lacked the authority to push, because it leaned on codes of conduct like the UN Global Compact, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development guidelines and Global Reporting Initiatives.

Hence, she concluded, not only the business sector, but also the public sector should adopt CSR, and it must not relinquish power to companies in controlling environmental or social benefits.

Chalida Ekvitthayavechnukul

The Nation