Editorial
Welcome to this bumper edition of the 2019 Corporate Sustainability Review as we continue to expand our coverage beyond Trinidad into other Caribbean countries.
Our theme for this edition is Local Content. On the threshold of First Oil, there is a lot coming out of Guyana in this special segment on the issue of Local Content. The country is feeling the pressure to deliver in two years what others have had decades to do; but Guyanese are quickly learning from the successes and failures of others. Interestingly, they are also setting a new model for Local Content, as the ultimate objective is to go beyond energy, to have a policy that transcends the sector. The Energy Department is also working to establish a Local Content Compliance Unit with oversight for the responsible management of the new oil industry.
While most businesses treat Local Content and Corporate Social Responsibility separately, the Review explores how often these two areas intersect. For many companies in the energy sector for example, Local Content Policies (LCPs) fit quite comfortably with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) policies as they are both purposed to promote and enhance local participation – either through direct inclusion in the management of resources; or by equipping communities through social investment initiatives to benefit indirectly from those resources.
As we will see in this edition, many companies focus social investment dollars on education. It certainly makes sense for energy operators to invest in education when capacity building is so critical to meeting Local Content requirements. Training and development within companies to strengthen in-house capacity and training and education within the community to build capability is where we most often see those overlaps.
In our Regional Perspectives, we have stories from the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Guyana. We’ve also introduced for the first time in this segment, ‘Regional Roundup’ to provide our expanding readership a broader glimpse of what companies and organisations are doing in various Caribbean territories.
GraceKennedy shares details of the Grace and Staff Community Development Foundation and Ege Haina in The Dominican Republic continues to do great work in renewable energy. We also checked in with ExxonMobil Guyana to look at its CSR. The imminence of First Oil also gave us an opportunity to examine the latest draft of Guyana’s Local Content Policy with Dominic Gaskin, Director in the Ministry of Business, and to understand how that will be influencing how operators build capacity for the country’s fledgling oil and gas industry. In keeping with our 2019 theme we invited Jemma Langley, Head of Secretariat at the Trinidad and Tobago Local Content Secretariat to provide her views on Local Content.
In this 2019 issue, our contributors in the Opinion columns explore some rather interesting topics. Saarah Khan writes on ‘The Circular Economy’, Kyle Santos on ‘Understanding your company’s social impact’, Michelle Palmer-Keizer gives readers tips on writing and evaluating a good CSR proposal and Jaysen Francis weighs in on Local Content. In this segment you will also see our local enterprise feature– Tommy’s Brewery.
This edition acknowledges the CEO of DeNovo Energy Limited, Monty Pemberton, as our conscious leader 2019; and from our Trinidad and Tobago companies come stories in sustainability, environmental care, local capability and strategic social investment. Atlantic marks 20 years of responsible governance and a sustainability agenda which aims to transform.
Donna P. Ramsammy
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
