Interest in responsible business behaviour has been growing in Latin America – and there are signs that it may increase further. EP looks at the state of CSR in the region
Some measure of the foothold that corporate responsibility has gained in Latin America can be gleaned from the fact that when delegates met in Uruguay in December for the annual Inter-American Conference on CSR, it was the seventh such gathering – and attracted several hundred people.
But an equally valid gauge of the state of CSR in the region could be garnered from the level of debate at the same meeting.
To European ears, at least, too much of the talk was focused on whether and why companies should be acting in a socially responsible manner, rather than on the mechanics of how they should be. With an enduring focus also on charitable programmes and community involvement, much of the discussion was at least four or five years behind that which might be expected at a similar event in the UK or the continent.
Things are changing, however. Clara Bazan Cea, director of social responsibility at the giant Spanish insurance company Mapfre, which has operations in 19 Latin American countries, says she has noticed a difference even in the past year. 'Practice used to be very much focused on philanthropy and community projects, but that's changing rapidly,' she says. 'I get the impression that a lot of catching up is being done.'
Other delegates and speakers at the conference in Uruguay expressed similar views, and the results of the first major study of CSR in the region also suggest that full-blown corporate responsibility is beginning to take hold.
The newly-published survey, which covers 18 countries, was carried out by Forum Empresa, a Chile-based alliance of business-led bodies that promote CSR throughout the Americas. It found that one in five of the 529 organizations that completed the survey have what it identifies as significant 'CSR capacity'. This is by dint of the fact that they fulfill four criteria: they produce a sustainability report; maintain membership of a business body on social responsibility; have someone in charge of the topic; and subscribe to some kind of CSR-related standard.
While a similar number did not have any of these things, almost half had two or three in place, providing hope that they are reasonably well positioned to take things forward.
Yanina Kowsyzk, executive director of Forum Empresa, says the study also showed that the vast majority of executives 'were very positive about the future in terms of their plans for CSR' and she too is hopeful that improvement is in the pipeline.
Kowsyzk says relations with workers came out as a particular strength of CSR policies and programmes in the region, while matters were least advanced on corporate governance and fighting corruption and bribery.
While 40 per cent of those in the study produced a regular report on corporate responsibility, one concern was that 60 per cent of the sample did not have a specific executive in charge of corporate responsibility. This may be partly explained by the fact that a quarter of the companies in the sample had less than 50 employees, but it does suggest that many companies have a long way to go.
One reason for this, according to observers in the region, is that there is simply not enough pressure, even on large companies, to get their act together. Alejandro Langlois, director of the ComunicaRSE consultancy in Argentina, says there is little NGO activity in the sphere, not much from governments, and hardly anything from investors. 'The markets do very little, and there are no state incentives to follow CSR as there are in other parts of the world,' he says. 'So the pressure often only comes internally, or from third parties abroad.'
Langlois, like others, sees the potential influence of the many Spanish companies operating in Latin America as a key driver for CSR – and a number of Spanish companies are already pushing their own ethical standards through their supply chains.
There may, however, be two other significant influences on the future of corporate responsibility in the region. Albert Schram, a consultant in Latin America for a decade before becoming a CSR researcher at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, says the recent triumphs of left-of-centre political parties across the region may feed through into greater expectations of the business sector, while William Bullard, corporate relations director for Diageo in Latin America, maintains that employees are emerging as key proponents of CSR throughout the region.
Bullard reports that Diageo's regional Learning for Life programme, which teaches life skills to underprivileged people, has a staff take-up rate of 60 per cent – too much for the company to cope with. 'Employees are the people who will get CSR snowballing throughout the region,' he says. 'I really believe they will make the difference.'