Indonesian government told to act on CSR

Government should promote an understanding of CSR among businesses in Indonesia, a CSR conference in Jakarta has been told.

So far the Indonesian government has promoted CSR only internally within companies, requiring them, for example, to enrol employees in pension and social insurance schemes, said Ani Rahadjo, General Electric’s engagement and corporate citizenship manager for Asia. She believed companies’ responsibility to society had not been properly promoted by the state and that most businesses would comply if there was a law compelling them to meet CSR standards.

However, Aloys Nugroho, a business ethics professor at Atma Jaya University in Jakarta, said ethical awareness had to come from companies themselves – they should realize that CSR involves performing good works and avoiding harmful activities.

Legislation would be unwise, countered Okti Damayanti, communications manager of the Peduli Foundation, a Unilever agency with the task of implementing CSR in the group. ‘We have too many regulations here,’ she said. ‘The best way for the government to motivate local companies to practise CSR is to provide incentives for those that do so.’