"The ESG opportunity lies in 'emagating' a city of the future."
On June 28, the "Building a New Future of Responsibility - 2024 (8th) Southern Public Welfare Brand Annual Conference" was held in Guangzhou. Zhang Yalong, President of the Hong Kong Institute for Sustainable Development, Executive Dean of SISD, and Dean of the School of Zero Carbon, emphasized at the meeting that ESG should install a city, and enterprises should care about a city, which is a responsibility and an opportunity.
With the development of the times, the economy, society and environment have become an inseparable whole, and corporate social responsibility has developed from a niche concept to a "must-answer question" for the sustainable development of enterprises, and many excellent practices of corporate social responsibility and public welfare and charity have emerged.
The Southern Public Welfare Think Tank continues to observe corporate public welfare and social responsibility, and has released the "Southern Public Welfare Communication Award" for seven consecutive years. A total of 137 public welfare projects were received in this year's Southern Public Welfare Communication Award, covering multiple fields such as rural revitalization and emergency response, with rich and diverse types and high-quality projects. After selection, Southern Public Welfare presented the 2024 Southern Public Welfare Communication Award, Annual Award, Innovation Award and Internet Popularity Award at the meeting. At the same time, on the basis of the analysis of the communication power of public welfare projects, this year, Southern Philanthropy also focused on the construction of corporate philanthropy brands, combined with the observation of corporate philanthropy in the past seven years and the accumulation of big data on the dissemination of public welfare projects, and selected the "Top Ten Charity Brands" of the year for the first time.
Corporate Social Responsibility: Sustainable development is the last word
"Climate change has promoted the establishment of the global goal of 'carbon neutrality', and promoted enterprises to build new quality productivity, new development models and new competitiveness under the ESG framework." Zhang Yalong believes that climate change has changed the rules of development, promoting ESG from passive to active, from blank to orderly, from individual to industry, from regional to global, and ultimately to achieve the common sustainable development of enterprises, cities, people and nature.
While regulatory requirements are imposed, ESG is not just about meeting regulatory requirements, nor is it impact investing. "The bull's-eye of ESG is sustainable development, sustainable development is the last word, if you can't survive, you can't consider the issue of responsibility. It is not sustainable if it only thinks about development without taking into account responsibility. Zhang Yalong further pointed out.
Specifically, Zhang Yalong believes that the 17 goals that sustainable development hopes to achieve, that is, the SDG goals, run through a relatively complex logical system, which can completely cover all elements of an enterprise development. Driven by the Sustainable Development Goals, enterprise development can be put on track and realize ecological and social values.
ESG is building the new competitiveness of enterprises, and SDG is an opportunity for enterprises to achieve sustainable development, so where is the opportunity for enterprises? Zhang Yalong believes that the opportunity lies in using ESG to "install" a city of the future.
"There are huge opportunities for businesses in the evaluation systems for improving urban climate, such as green transportation, green buildings, smart clean city models, carbon sinks and carbon offsets, water resource utilization, urban governance, energy management, and waste disposal. These aspects cover almost all the cells and units of people's daily lives, such as enterprises, parks, hospitals, schools and other public facilities. ”
Talking about public welfare and charity action: moving towards the innovative stage of public welfare for all
Charity is an important part of corporate social responsibility, an important way to implement the third distribution and promote common prosperity, and an important symbol of social civilization and progress. The 2024 government work report also points out that it will guide and support the healthy development of social organizations, humanitarian assistance, volunteer services, and public welfare and charity.
"Enterprises are the most dynamic market players, but also the main force of Chinese modern philanthropy, the development of corporate philanthropy and the growth of philanthropy complement each other, profoundly affecting the modernization process of China's philanthropy." Hu Yuping, Secretary-General of the Heung Kong Social Assistance Foundation, pointed out.
According to him, the scale of corporate public welfare has grown rapidly in recent years. According to the China Corporate Philanthropy Development Report, as of June 2023, there are 1,359 corporate foundations in China, accounting for 14.5% of all foundations in the country. Among them, state-owned enterprise foundations accounted for 6.76% of the total number of enterprise foundations, and private enterprise foundations accounted for 93.23%.
Hu Yuping further pointed out that the development of public welfare in mainland enterprises for many years has gone through the embryonic emotional stage, and the second stage of relatively rational specialization, and is now entering the innovative stage of diversified development, application of Internet platform technology, and public welfare for everyone.
At this stage, corporate philanthropy innovation is very important. Hu Yuping believes that it can be combined with the main business of the enterprise to highlight the advantages of the business model. It can also be decorporated, focusing on social issues and focusing on public welfare. In addition, cross-border collaboration can also be used to make good use of the government and social resource network.
It is worth mentioning that Hu Yuping also mentioned a new focus on public welfare: the development trend of community-based philanthropy - community public welfare. She believes that enterprises can combine their own strategies to design projects in sinking communities. On the one hand, small and medium-sized enterprises can form a joint force in many ways and choose familiar areas to develop targeted projects, and on the other hand, they can sink into the community and play a role at the grassroots level through point-to-point assistance.
Benefiting Enterprises: Making Public Welfare More Powerful
In fact, a number of high-quality enterprises with social responsibility have emerged around us, and they have accumulated rich experience in public welfare and charity.
Guo Xiaoye, Project Manager of Tencent Foundation, shared the case of Tencent Philanthropy on the emergency response mechanism. In December last year, when a 6.2-magnitude earthquake struck Jishishan County, Linxia Prefecture, Gansu Province, Tencent Charity Foundation announced a donation of 20 million yuan to respond to emergency relief, transitional resettlement, and post-disaster recovery in the disaster-stricken areas of Gansu and Qinghai. "Digital cash-for-work" was also one of the initiatives at that time.
Guo Xiaoye said that the traditional cash-for-work has problems such as difficulty in information declaration, process management and fund distribution. Tencent Foundation has launched the "Post-Disaster Relief Mini Program" mini-program, which leverages Tencent's connectivity capabilities to enable village committees in disaster-stricken areas in Gansu and Qinghai to declare their post-disaster reconstruction needs for cash-for-work on a "code" basis, making post-disaster reconstruction more rapid.
Wang Chunyu, Deputy Director of the Marketing Department of Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group, brought the case sharing of "Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Baiyun Mountain Family Expired Drug Recycling Activity". Wang Chunyu introduced that in 2003, the SARS virus spread, and Banlangen was snatched up. Since October 2004, Guangzhou Baiyunshan Hutchison Whampoa Traditional Chinese Medicine Co., Ltd. has decided to take out products and funds to replace the expired products of various brands of Banlangen in the hands of consumers free of charge with the latest batch number of Baiyunshan Banlangen throughout the country.
Household recall of expired medicines is escalating in practice. From a single variety of banlangen to more than 120 kinds of products under Guangyao Baiyunshan. The scope also extends from Guangzhou to more than 200 cities. In total, more than 1,800 tons of expired drugs were recovered. The project was awarded the Guinness World Record for "the world's largest household recall of expired medicines".
Huang Yitao, vice president of Guangzhou Shirui Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. and chairman of Guangzhou Kaidelian Intelligent Co., Ltd., brought the case sharing of Xiwo's high-quality and balanced education empowered by artificial intelligence: "Education is special, and it needs to be accurate, professional, stable and low-cost to help the development of high-quality and balanced, and secondly, to launch a special large model. With the SEWO education model as the core, we empower the professional growth of teachers, the development of students, and the overall education management and education governance system. ”
According to reports, as of December 2023, SEWO Charity has donated information-based teaching equipment to 942 schools, benefiting more than 45,000 teachers and about 630,000 students.
While enterprises are rushing to the front line of public welfare, the Southern Public Welfare Think Tank continues to observe corporate public welfare and has released the "Southern Public Welfare Communication Award" for 7 consecutive years to accompany the growth of many corporate public welfare brands. As early as 2022, Southern Charity gave full play to the advantages of media platform connection and communication value, and jointly launched the "Benefiting Enterprises Together" theme public welfare activity with enterprises and public welfare organizations. In the past two years, Southern Public Welfare has joined hands with Meituan, Pinduoduo and other enterprises to "benefit enterprises".
In 2024, Southern Charity will continue to join hands with enterprises to go to the front line of public welfare and empower the operation and dissemination of corporate public welfare projects. At the "Building a New Future of Responsibility - The 8th Southern Charity Brand Annual Conference", Southern Charity announced the official launch of the 2024 Southern Charity and Benefiting Enterprises Theme Public Welfare Activities, and will join hands with OnePlus Cell Therapy Group to jointly launch a public welfare activity of free immunity testing to unveil the mystery of immunity; Partnered with Infinitus to create a popular science activity with the theme of "Walking Chinese Medicine Classroom", allowing children to experience the charm of Chinese medicine culture while walking.
"Looking forward to the future, Southern Philanthropy will continue to give full play to the advantages of media think tanks, work with academia and industry to explore and study the improvement of public welfare communication efficiency, sort out the development law and logic of corporate social responsibility, and promote 'public welfare power' with 'communication power'; Wang Genghui, deputy secretary of the Party Committee and vice president of Nanfang Press Media Group, said.
【Writing】Zhou Zhongyu Ye Qihan
【Video】Kong Jianfeng, Fu Zongliang
【Picture】Wang Juntao
【Operation】Feng Jian, Wu Dongyun, Zhong Haoming
【Execution】Yao Chong, Zhou Zhongyu
【Co-ordinator】Zhao Binghui, Wu Hongyan, Ma Hua
【Planning】He Youhua, Chen Hanhui
【Producer】Southern Public Welfare Think Tank
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【Author】 Zhou Zhongyu; WANG Juntao; KONG Jianfeng; Ye Qihan; Fu Zongliang
Southern Public Welfare+