Business gives social values more weight
As businesses increasingly incorporate a social dimension and public face to their operations, the distinction between financial and social bottom lines is becoming blurred, according to Helene Li, co-founder and chairperson of the Future Enterprise Foundation.
Li's foundation works to bring together socially minded corporations and NGOs and recently gathered many companies for a forum on creating a socially responsible economy.
'People are realising that financial gains and economic values are not really separable from social or environmental values,' said Li. 'You cannot pursue economic values at the expense of social and environmental values.'
Banks and financial firms, for example, now offered socially minded investors the chance to use their funds in more meaningful ways, such as in rural education programmes. Property developers were incorporating green features in their buildings, while power companies were operating in more environmentally sustainable ways.
AECOM's regional corporate sustainability director for Asia Dr Thomas Tang said the global engineering company often teamed up in the US with Engineers Without Borders, a non-governmental organisation that helped disadvantaged communities by building homes pro bono.
Li did not see the new Community Care Fund as a cross-sector collaboration between the government and corporations, but said the administration had been quite proactive.
'Government has a real role to play working with foundations directly, looking at the third sector and how to elevate the skill set and broaden the mindset,' she said. 'It's a matter of more partnerships and more cross-sector engagement.'
