In the last two years, integrating social and environmental benefits with business profitability has become a popular strategy of local and international companies. Valentino cited the Fortune 500 companies 25 years ago that no longer exist today because they failed to adopt a strategy of sustainability. "We are talking less about the economy and more about what we should do for society and the solutions we can provide," said Valentino. "The social contract has been moved from the industrial to the private sector because great wealth, power and influence are now in this sector. We should be leaders in the CSR movement."

Although CSR is still a new concept for most Chinese companies, they are catching up with their international counterparts and learning from them. "International companies have long-established CSR standards and common practices, but it is a new concept in the banking sector and we have kept on improving ourselves," said Ma Li, executive vice-president of the Shanghai Pudong Development Bank (SPDB) and keynote speaker at the CEO Roundtable. The SPDB's CSR efforts include creating an environmentally friendly office, educational programmes and micro-financing for industries relevant to social welfare.

Corporate social innovation

At which point does innovation come into CSR? "We're looking at new core competencies that companies develop that are new values to produce innovation," said Valentino. "Innovation is trying something that's never been done before. You begin to look at the issues, realize its impacts on your markets and employees and do something about it within the context of CSR. It's a value-added approach because you are innovating to find how you can do things to get a pay-off from both sides." In Bayer's definition, "It is not just corporate social responsibility but corporate social innovation that drives us to create systemic change towards sustainable development."

Deloitte's school mentoring programme, where staff volunteered to mentor disadvantaged children for an hour a month, provided a good example of such innovation. After a year, the children had gained a great deal of confidence while staff learned to solve problems more creatively without guidelines. Deloitte Director P.C. Lim shared the company's experience with roundtable delegates: "CSR doesn't have to start with money. It's the management's commitment, good partners and planning it out."

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