CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY MOVEMENT

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• CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY MOVEMENT
• The role of the Media in Promoting Corporate
  Environmental Responsibility in the context of
  CSR in Ghana
• Conference Room of CSRM-Tema New Town
• Date 30th October 2007
• Dr. Samuel Famiyeh

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Presentation Outline

• This presentation is divided into Five main
  sessions
• The economy-environment interdependence
• Overview of Corporate Social Responsibility
  towards the environment
• The idea of the Ecological Footprint
• The media and the environment
• Recommended strategies for integrating
  environmental issues into media activities
• Conclusions.

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Economy Environment Interdependence

• Business and industrial activities cause serious
  environmental threats, just to name the major
  ones global warming and energy use, toxic
  substances, ozone destruction and CFCs, acid rain
  and transport, marine pollution and health and
  finally the reduced biodiversity, loss of species
  and habitats.
• In Ghana the main issues that can be identified
  are industry effluents, Mining waste and
  pollution, municipal solid waste etc
• Sustainable business strategy means taking the
  goal of sustainability by living and working in
  such a way that human society will be possible
  for generations to come and translating this goal
  of sustainability into the changes required of an
  individual organization.

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Economy Environment Interdependence
To environment
Environment-collectively and privately Owned
sources of materials and gases and Also sinks
for same (land, air, streams, Oceans, lakes
To envt
C
B
A
Environmental firms (farms, mines, fishing farms,
loggers, etc
Recycled
D
R
A2
Non-environmental Firms (factories,
stores Transport)
Households
BR
F
Recycled
Residuals
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Economy Environment Interdependence

• A key debate between publics, regulators,
  industries and business concerning how business
  should be regulated centres on internalising the
  costs of environmental impacts, thereby forcing
  integration of environmental protection
  strategies into organizations decision making.
• Traditionally, business, industries and societies
  saw nature as a provider of free goods such as
  water, air, and waste disposal facilities.
• As limits on physical environments ability to
  provide these services have become clearer, a
  renegotiation is taking place. Access to
  environmental goods are being controlled and
  restricted in response to scarcity.

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Economy Environment Interdependence

• The Ecological Footprint
• The Ecological Footprint is a measure of the
  "load" imposed by a given population on nature.
  It represents the land area necessary to sustain
  current levels of resource consumption and waste
  discharge by that population.

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Economy Environment Interdependence

• Industries are the key to development in any
  region, but, however, very good care needs to be
  taken in achieving developmental goals, since
  environmental degradation is caused by these
  industrial developments.
• Nations should also recognize that growth can no
  longer be a sole objective which stands alone
  without paying compensation to its environmental
  consequences now and into the future.
• A change in the attitudes towards both
  consumption and production is needed.

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Economy Environment Interdependence

• One of the objectives of every regulatory body in
  charge of environment is to pledged to amongst
  others, create public awareness and provide
  environmental education on sustainable
  environmental management, promote private sector
  compliance with environmental regulations.

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Corporate Responsibility towards the Environment

• Traditional business management was focused more
  on corporate profits, growth, and market share
  with less attention on the effects on the
  environment. Business activities and strategies
  were basically on economic performance,
  neglecting the importance of ecological
  performance (Welford, Richard., 1995).
• In the new global competitive business
  environment, poor management of corporate
  reputation, employee practices, product
  stewardship and environmental management can give
  rise to social and environmental risks that
  damage shareholder value, hence, ecological
  considerations are vital to the successful
  running of any business, an industry, an
  organization or a country as a whole finds
  itself.

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Corporate Responsibility towards the Environment

• As a business issue, environmental sustainability
  represents going beyond environmental regulatory
  compliance towards integrating environmental
  issues into strategic decision-making and
  corporate management, performance and
  communications.
• This integration of environmental issues into
  strategic decision making needs to be achieved in
  a way that meets core business needs and wider
  stakeholder expectations.
• Environmental issues have become an important
  element in the management of both private and
  public organizations. Companies are currently
  facing increasing demands from various
  stakeholders on the issues of environmental
  performance of their products and processes.

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Corporate Responsibility towards the Environment

• Environmental regulation requirements are no more
  the issue but also the additional demands from
  stakeholders and society at large.
• Consumers are currently asking for green
  products, public authorities place growing demand
  on companies' environmental performance,
  employees and neighbourhood residents are
  concerned about the health and safety aspects of
  production, and non-governmental organizations
  are running campaigns for the environment and
  sustainability.
• This has led to business and industries
  recognizing the need to improve their
  environmental performance.

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Corporate Responsibility towards the Environment

• Business has an essential role to play in
  promoting the move towards sustainable
  development and face serious environmental
  challenges such as
• Meeting regulatory requirements or exceeding
• Cleaning up pollution that already exists and
  properly disposing of the hazardous material
• Disclosing to investors, both potential and
  current, the amounts and nature of the
  preventative measures taken by management
• Operating in a way that environmental damage does
  not occur
• Promoting a company-wide "environmental attitude
• Efficient use of natural resources.

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Corporate Responsibility towards the Environment

• These are the challenges for industry posed by
  the concept of sustainable development.
• The continuing ability of the environment to
  supply raw materials and assimilate waste whiles
  maintaining biodiversity and quality of life is
  being increasingly undermined.
• If the current responsibility path is to be
  focused on growth and development, then it will
  be very important to focus or achieve it in a way
  that will not cause harm to the environment.

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Corporate Responsibility towards the Environment

• Companies need careful, systematic and effective
  environmental management strategies and policies
  to be able to achieve these environmental
  improvement and their sustainable objectives.
• Hence, companies must focus on a clear
  environmental mission, vision, goals/targets and
  careful planning to achieve their environmental
  improvement and its sustainable objective.

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Corporate Responsibility towards the Environment

• An environmental management system is one of the
  tools which firms can use to voluntarily
  implement environmental policy.
• An EMS consists of "a number of interrelated
  elements that function together to help a firm
  manage, measure, and improve the environmental
  aspects of its operations" (Richard, Welford ed.,
  1996).
• These elements include formulating environmental
  policies, setting objectives and targets,
  implementing programs to achieve those objectives
  and targets, monitoring and measuring the
  effectiveness of the programs, correcting
  problems, if any, and reviewing the programs and
  their overall performance for improvement thereof
  (Alan, Netherwood., 1996).

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Corporate Responsibility towards the Environment

• An EMS would typically follow a Plan-Do-Check-Act
  Cycle, or PDCA (see figure below). The figure
  shows the process of first developing an
  environmental policy, planning the EMS, and then
  implementing it. The process also includes
  checking the system and acting on it. The process
  is continuous because an EMS is a process of
  continual improvement in which an organization is
  constantly reviewing and revising the system.

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The Objectives of this presentation

• This presentation explores the role of the media
  as a watchdog to effectively management the
  environment to achieve sustainable development.
  Definition
• Specifically the presentation aims at
• Creating the aware that for media practitioner to
  know they have an important role to play as far
  as environmental management in the country is
  concerned
• Increasing the volume of environmental (if they
  even exist in some media) issues on their list of
  activities
• Informing participants and for that matter the
  general public of the idea of the limits to
  growth (current generation over exploitation of
  their share of natural resources and the earth
  polluted than it can assimilate)

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The Media and Environment

• The current state of the Ghanaian environment
  seems really deteriorating Just to name a few
  The Chemu Lagoon, Korle Lagoon, Polluted streams,
  soils etc in the southwestern Ghana as a result
  of mining.
• These environmental pollution problems really
  have a serious effect on the economy, current and
  for that matter future generations.
• Environmental degradation such ad marine
  pollution (James Town, Kpeshie, Tema etc)
  desertification, effluent from factories,
  emission, solid waste management, mining waste
  (acid mine drainage, waste rock, cyanide, etc) in
  on the increase in the country exposing millions
  of citizens to serious health problems in
  addition to poverty.

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The Media and Environment

• This warrants a proactive approach by the media
  to inform citizens, government and policy makers
  about the current state of the situation for then
  to really wake up and enact policies and
  strategies to combat the situation.
• There is the need for the media to increase
  lobbying for political leaders to become very
  responsive to these environmental issues through
  consistent reporting.
• It is time for the local media to devote the same
  time and energies they spend on other
  inconsequential issues to educate the public to
  critical issues pertaining to the environment.

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The Media and Environment

• The media can also influence the government to
  prioritize environmental issues into development
  component through regular reporting
• The media can also help create early warning
  systems by providing to policy makers adequate
  information on pollution issues which can be
  integrated into government programmes and
  projects.
• The media can also trigger donations from the
  international community as well push the African
  governments to increase budgetary allocations for
  environmental management programmes.

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The Media and Environment

• It is a bit clear to everybody including the
  Sector Ministry and the Environmental Protection
  Agency that an approach to environmental
  management, focusing mainly on laws, regulatory
  frameworks, Legislative Instruments such as the
  current L.I. 1652 Environmental Assessment
  Regulations and prescribed procedures and
  processes like SEAs, EIAs, EMP/S, EP, etc.
• This the so called the conventional or command
  and control approach which are some of the
  provisions of the EPA, can only take us to a
  certain point.
• Yes there is the need for the Police sometimes
  when it matters, but the greater challenge, and
  what can lead to a higher level of achievement,
  is the involvement of people through education,
  information and awareness.

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The Media and Environment

• One has to also understand these
  command-and-control or the conventional approach
  to environmental management also tend to be very
  costly, long drawn out of bureaucratic and time
  consuming. A number of resources have to be
  committed to these and there is the need to labor
  for results.
• One has to also remember if 100 of that
  direction is taken, there is the need to
  recognize that unless there is some
• Amount of awareness built,
• Information available to all key stakeholders
• Heightened environmental consciousness
• this will not go far.

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The Media and Environment

• All media practitioners here should be convince
  that the role of the media in dissemination of
  environmental information can work for the nation
  and build the foundation to sustain and enable
  the other approaches, hence your role as media
  practitioner is indeed very crucial and central
  to resource use and environmental management of
  this nation.
• There seems to be a very active media in the
  country, a very dynamic ones in some instances
  and think some of the efforts could be enlisted
  into environmental management.
• Here the media is chosen due to its crucial role.
  The media sets and sustain a topic or theme in
  the public forum as long as possible, thereby
  encouraging discussion on the topic and is well
  done generating public pressure.

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The Media and Environment

• Basically the media does not only deals with the
  direct impact of a countrys environmental
  management, but with the indirect influence it
  exerts, i.e., by giving citizens the information
  they need to exercise vigilance over pollution
  issues.
• The key message is that an independent media
  which present diverse information based on the
  triple-line objectives can boost economic
  development by promoting good environmental
  management and empower citizens.
• The question which we need all to answer is what
  are we doing about environmental issues in the
  country?
• The citizenry needs the help of the media to tell
  them the truth about the current state of the
  Ghanaian environment and its impact on
  individuals, the community, society and the
  economy.

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Strategies for Integration of environmental
Issues in the Media

• Here the media should collect, verify, produce,
  distribute and exhibit information regarding
  current events, trends, issues and people that
  are associated with the envionment.
• To be able to achieve this successfully, there is
  the need to have an understanding of
• scientific language and practice,
• Knowledge of historical environmental events,
• The ability to keep abreast of environmental
  policy decisions and the work of environmental
  organizations,
• A general understanding of current environmental
  concerns, and
• The ability to communicate all of that
  information to the public in such a way that it
  can be easily understood, despite its complexity.

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Strategies for Integration of environmental
Issues in the Media

• Information has become more important in
  regulation for three main reasons
• First, it has become much cheaper to gather
  process and distribute environmental information.
  
• Secondly, rising levels of public education and
  political representation in many countries have
  widened the circle of participation in
  environmental management. These new
  constituencies need appropriate information in
  order to participate effectively.
• Finally, rising acceptance of cost-benefit
  analysis has increased the demand for information
  which contributes to the systematic assessment of
  regulatory policy options.

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Strategies for Integration of environmental
Issues in the Media

• The media must be more proactive in reporting on
  environmental related issues. Seems to
  concentrate on politics, music, talk shows,
  mentor etc.
• The media/Journalist needs to be trained
  regularly on environmental management to enhance
  their understanding of key environmental
  management/science terms, sources or
  environmental damage, scope, and some simple
  policy options to abate pollution.
• Policy makers should work closely with the media
  houses to broadcast or write positive stories
  that can trigger change and offer possible
  solutions to polluted areas.

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Strategies for Integration of environmental
Issues in the Media

• Media advocacy stories should target the policy
  makers in the country for quick responses or
  actions.
• Establish online information for environmentally
  polluted areas of the country.
• Keep a database for environmentally polluted
  areas in the country and their sources including
  their impacts.
• Develop an award system to give awards for best
  researched media stories on environmental
  pollution as a token of appreciation to their
  efforts to help combat pollution.

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CONCLUSION

• The main objective here is for the media to
  remind policy makers and Corporate Bodies and
  influence them to act by exposing the highly
  polluted areas that poses risks to current and
  future generations to enable them find out what
  can be done to reduce if not halt them.
• There is the need for the media to integrate into
  their current reporting framework programs and
  services addressing the following objectives
• to build a stronger and more closely connected
  network of educated environmental citizenry
• to stimulate more and better coverage of a range
  of critically important environmental issues
• to encourage addition or expansion of
  environmental reporting positions within
  broadcast, print, and internet news
  organizations

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• THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION
• AND
• PARTICIPATION