"Moral responsibility is doing it from the heart" -- Mohiuddin Babar

 Mohiuddin Babar is Robi Axiata's Vice President at CSR Department. He has been working with CSR issues both at home and abroad for more than a decade. Here’s what he told Natunbarta.com about CSR issues:

 

Natunbarta (NB): What made you interested in CSR?

 

Mohiuddin Babar (MB): About a decade ago, I used to work with International Chamber of Commerce. Naturally, I got involved with many businessmen and their work. It was at that time I noticed their how they use their profit for others. It was exactly at that time, there was a global awakening of CSR. The subject made me interested and I gradually delved quite deep into it.

 

NB: Bangladesh has a long history of charity; businessmen always spent for social purposes. How was the state of CSR when the corporates started doing it?

 

MB: The history of CSR is quite long, and you’re very right, the CSR movement in the corporate sector may be new, but it has always been there in Bangladesh. If you go to Old Dhaka or Narayanganj, you’d see schools, colleges, temples, mosques and hospital – all built by some businessmen. At that time, they would build these establishments along with developing their own businesses. It was a philanthropic matter at that time, more of donating something to the society. In the ‘60s and ‘70s when the people in Europe and America started becoming aware on child rights and environmental issues, they started to notice what corporates were doing. Then, slowly the concept of social responsibility of the corporates developed.

 

Then came the issues of book keeping of WorldTel and Enron, the people were angered. It was at that time, the word “stakeholder” got prominence. Previously, a “shareholder” was enough; the companies objective was to satisfy the shareholders. When the environmentalists, child and labour rights activists started sending messages to the big businesses, they started becoming careful about it. The first stakeholder was their employees, then customers, the government, regulatory bodies, the media and the like. They had to become accountable to all these stakeholders. This accountability became CSR.

 

NB: Can we then have any specific definition for CSR?

 

MB: Actually, it has many definitions. It depends on what you’re doing. Many term this as ‘social accountability”; many call it just SR (Social Responsibility) and now we are calling it CSR. Very recently, ISO26000 has been termed as the standard for social responsibility. So, there were many definitions of CSR.

 

NB: We the commoners in Bangladesh, the corporates are giving a certain portion of their profit to the society. But have we advanced in CSR practices when we started this?

 

MB: We’ve advanced a lot. But let me talk about definition a bit more. To my mind, it should be BSR (Business Social Responsibility), not CSR. When we call it CSR, we naturally think of big companies; we look up at them what they are doing. But a small shopkeeper is also doing business and is responsible. Whether he is giving you a quality product or pinching your pocket by asking too much price should also be considered as “responsibility”. Presently, the supply chain is also included in CSR. So, not only the big corporates, we all should be socially responsible.

 

About giving back to the society, the amount of money varies company to company. Tata in India follows a nice philosophy: “first, you look after the society and then you establish your business”. In Jamshedpur Tata City, they set up schools and other facilities much before setting up their steel mill. It’s a great CSR activity. Take the example of Body Shop, they started with the vow not to use any harmful chemical in their products. They weren’t giving any amount of money to the society, but they were benefiting the people in a different way.

 

NB: But how do companies decide on how much to give?

 

MB: There’s no specific rule or formula on this. The companies have been doing it what they decided. But very recently, the government in India has formulated a regulation that the companies will have to spend two per cent of their profit as CSR with some slabs. Bangladesh has still nothing something like that, but Bangladesh Bank has issued a directive for the banks to spend a certain amount of money in CSR.

 

NB: Do you think a government body on CSR can enforce this? Will everyone be inspired?

 

MB: When you enforce, everyone is bound to do it, but whether you’re doing it from your heart is a question. But there’s a need for a regulatory body in Bangladesh.

 

NB: What are you doing at Robi right now? What did you do at Lafarge?

 

MB: We have given solar power to 600 household in a remote village in Rangpur. The people of that village are not only lighting their homes, they are also using electricity for income-generation. If they couldn’t have used this power for income generation, it would just a simple philanthropy. We have also supply clean drinking water at various rail stations across the country.

 

Lafarge also had a big project; we rehabilitated an entire village to somewhere else when we built the factory. We also built a school and a health centre in that village.

 

NB: You’ve written a book titled Corporate Moral Responsibility. Why aren’t you calling it social responsibility?

 

MB: Moral responsibility is “doing it from the heart”. It should be your moral duty, not responsibility; you have to be self-inspired to do it. When you’re building a factory near a village, you’ll have to think whether your waste water would harm the villagers. The Environment Office won’t be able to compel you all the time.

 

NB: So, Bangladesh has a lot to do in this regard.

 

MB: Yes, there are good signs; everyone is becoming conscious about it.

 

NB: Do companies spend money to boost their image? Do they use this in marketing themselves?

 

MB: There’s a quote of Phillip Tucker: “If you do something and don’t tell, that means you’ve not done anything”. So, I have to let everyone know that I am doing something; there are many positive sides of letting others know about that you’re doing. Yes, there are companies that are using CSR as a marketing tool. The best thing you could do is to let someone else to sing your song. But you’ve to let people know. It helps the stakeholders, especially the employees. They get inspired. Then, other companies also feel inspired by seeing you. So, in CSR, communication is very important.

 

NB: What could be the government’s role as a regulator to strengthen CSR activities?

 

MB: Unlike in the past, CSR is huge now. It has graduated to child rights and environment to work[lace safety and product analysis. You’re building a big school but not looking after your workers won’t mean anything. Since CSR supplements development, the government can take an advisory or regulatory role. There are many who want to get involved in CSR, but don’t know what to do. The government can lead them.