CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY SEMINAR TO BE HELD IN YEREVAN
armradio.am
24.06.2008 17:09
On June 30 the British Council, Eurasia Partnership Foundation,
United Nations Global Compact and American Chamber of Commerce are
organizing a seminar entitled Corporate Social Responsibility: a New
Role for Businesses. The seminar is being organized with additional
support from KPMG Armenia CJSC.
Nerses Yeritisyan, the Minister of Economy, will make opening
remarks. The seminar will be led by two experts from the United
Kingdom, Mallen Baker of Business Respect and Birgit Errath from
the International Business Leaders Forum. Mr. Baker is currently
responsible for developing BITC’s approach to marketplace issues. He
initiated the Business Impact Review Group – the group of 20 companies
who developed a common approach to CSR reporting. Mr. Baker is also
the editor of the email newsletter on CSR ‘Business Respect’ and
a regular columnist with Ethical Corporation. Ms. Errath leads the
UN Global Compact’s program to support implementation of the 10th
principle against corruption and coordinates Global Compact network
activities in South-East Asia. She has a degree in international
business administration and specialization on financial markets and
ran privatization projects for governments and companies in Central
and Eastern Europe at Raiffeisen Investment Bank.
The experts will lead similar events in Tbilisi on July 2 and Baku
on July 4, 2008. The seminar, with around 100 participants from 50
companies (from sectors such as banking, airlines, telecommunications,
hotels and so on) will tell local business executives and marketing
managers why and how their companies stand to gain from community work.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a broad topic of ethical
business practices and corporate citizenship, which has gaining
increasing importance around the world. The United Kingdom has a well
developed business community which gives a high degree of priority to
this area, while in Armenia relatively little is known about CSR. The
growth of CSR in Armenia will develop partnerships between the private
and the non-profit sectors, further strengthening Armenia’s move
towards European integration.