CEO of the Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Industry and Commerce
The last time T&T faced a deep and prolonged economic downturn (and we’re yet to find out how protracted this one will be), it was the mid-1980s and Catherine Kumar was at ALGICO. The current CEO of the Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Industry and Commerce recalls that the concept of CSR was not then widespread in corporate T&T. When the recession bit, it was easy for businesses to justify cuts to social spending. It was philanthropy, after all, and charity is optional.
But at some time in the 1990s, post-recession, CSR momentum gathered. More companies formalized their social spending with board-approved policies that were likely to endure. “And we moved from the world of philanthropy and donations, to CSR,” says Kumar.
While it wasn’t quite as dramatic as waving a magic wand, a shift in corporate thinking saw businesses placing themselves within the context of the larger society or (society at large?). To an extent, it dawned on hard-nosed businessmen that a company’s performance was inextricably linked to societal well-being, even if some senior execs were more grudging than others. The move precipitated broader, sustainable participation in CSR policy. It was no longer: “This year I feel like doing this. Next year…”
The Chamber of Commerce itself came to the table late. “We have a committee here, a CSR Committee,” says Kumar, referring to a file in front of her. “It has been around for quite a while,” she adds, looking for the date of establishment.
“Yes, 2007. I take that back! Some of our committees have been around much longer than that. That means even from the Chamber’s point of view then, we even got involved at a much later date than maybe the rest of Trinidad and Tobago.”
But get involved the Chamber did, promoting the benefits of CSR to its membership and asserting that: “Through CSR policy, you actually can become more competitive.”
Chamber workshops on developing CSR policy steered members toward establishing frameworks, but decisions on whether CSR should be funded from a percentage of sales, or bottom line, or another figure altogether, were left to the businesses. “We’ve had members come back and talk to us,” says Kumar, “who have now said that they have a CSR policy in place. And you feel good about that, that you’re able to take them from doing nothing to one where they have a policy in place and you know that it’s set up and running well.”
The metrics are the tricky part. It’s one thing to assert that CSR can make you more competitive; quite another to quantify a return on investment. “It is one of those things where it is hard to measure return, just like corporate advertising, but it is still something that you want to do.”
Drawing on her banking background— Kumar has been Country Head of RBTT Bank and has served as President of the Bankers’ Association—she suggests that CSR can be considered part of Corporate Governance. Demonstrating good Corporate Governance might enable a business to negotiate a better lending rate with a bank, for example. But Kumar says it’s best to rate CSR in terms of its own success: “How is our CSR working? Are we in line with what we planned to do?”
The Chamber has its own, longstanding CSR initiative; one that Kumar is proud of.
Jump Start has been around for 20 years, providing career exposure to secondary school students through placements with mentors in the field they’d like to get acquainted with. The programme has grown to 100 students a year, all of whom are being versed in CV-writing, interview etiquette, teamwork and financial planning.
As the economy has contracted, Jump Start sponsorship has followed suit. “So the Chamber has to carry part of the cost. And we certainly would because it is considered something, at the board level, that we want to do and we will do. And if we have to carry the cost, we want to do it. It’s not something we’re going to give up on.”
The motivation for CSR can’t be all dollars and cents. It requires a genuine, somewhat unselfish commitment to social engagement. But the desire to keep Jump Start going, for the student who’d like to know what Optometry is really like, is also about the Chamber brand. “I think it’s recognizing that the Chamber is about business. Business is about making money. We don’t want the only image of the Chamber outside there to be that all we do is help companies make more money and make more money. We also want the image to be, how are we helping the youth develop? How are we helping them to be better persons for tomorrow, how are we helping them to mature?”
And speaking of brands, Kumar believes that it is cynical to suggest that consumers aren’t paying attention to the work of good corporate citizens. “I think we underestimate people and their values. And generally most people are concerned about the values of other people around them and the values of corporations around them.”
Yet, banks are often characterized by their customers as profiteers. And collectively, Kumar believes, “they’re probably the biggest contributors to any CSR projects.” While positive engagement with the national community can enhance your brand, other factors also influence a company’s image. In the case of the banks, Kumar says, the average person judges them by their absolute returns— the dollar value of their profits. From a business perspective, it might be fairer to judge them by another metric—return on investment.
The Chamber CEO contends that intense focus on the bottom line, to the exclusion of all else, leads to shrinking profits. She admits to knowing companies that “shave every little cent” off of costs that aren’t perceived as integral to doing business. But many others aren’t so myopic. “Companies are realizing that the more you focus on other things— bringing good to the society, being there for your employees—your topline will grow, your employees themselves will become more innovative and want to do more for the company, and your bottom line will ultimately grow.”
It’s projected that the economy still has some contracting to do. Businesses are already facing stark choices. “Especially during times when things are tight, I think (the commitment to CSR) has to be a genuine, deep-seated concern and commitment,” says Kumar. If it’s implemented just to match strides with the competition, it’s unlikely to survive. “The companies which keep their CSR programmes going, even in the hard times, are the ones I would say, have a genuine concern for the society they live within.”