The IPIECA has always been on my “Resources”-roll, but if you were like me, the IPIECA doesn’t sound like an appealing detour while blog perusing. It stands for International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association and might bore away non-petroleum people, but would be too bad. I have been finding some helpful resources on their website related to social responsibility and social investment in particular. Social investment isn’t to be confused with socially responsible investing. Rather it is the “voluntary contributions companies make to the communities and broader societies where they operate”. Some call it CSR or community investment. No matter what it is called, the main point is that it should be approached with the same business sense as any other element of a company’s work.
Creating Successful, Sustainable Soical Investment is really a useful and resource-rich document for any business investing in community development initiatives. The Executive Summary (almost three pages) gives away all the good answers and the Resources section in the Appendix has lots of places to get additional information.
One lesson learned that can’t be stressed enough is that “how the company engages determines success more than what the company does”. I have learned this time and again. And for companies spending millions of £, $, € or nakfa, it is hard to understand how even the smallest expenses need to be spent in a way that will not generate suspicion. How matters, as we have been hearing a lot lately!
I can’t say I agreed with every point, but on the whole, an extremely useful document.
The document, I have learned, was written by the Corporate Engagement Project, I didn’t have them on my Resources list…until now.
June 3, 2009 at 4:16 pm
OHH This is good for me. Thank ^_^ I really do appreciate your time on putting this up