Conducting CSR in very wrong ways

[Coss]

Zippo lighter store-owner Rangsun Chanvorawit's corporate social responsibility (CSR) event to hand out 1,000 free ashtrays to keep people from disposing of their cigarette butts on the ground, is a contender for the worst CSR attempt of the year. It sounds more like a campaign to promote smoking than an activity promoting CSR. The social-responsibility ashtrays will be distributed at the grand opening of his Zippadeedoo shop next month.

 

"Since you can't stop people from smoking, they should be encouraged to smoke responsibly," he said. This quote, published in this newspaper on May 9, could also be in the running for the most hypocritical statement of the year.

 

Mr Rangsun continues: "Dumping cigarette butts is not a huge problem, but it's difficult to grab the ash that is floating in the air."

 

Dumping cigarette butts is not a huge problem indeed because the huge problem is smoking itself. It would be nonsensical for a lighter vendor to jump on the anti-smoking bandwagon, especially when Zippo's sales have been increasing by 40% annually. But, if Mr Rangsun is serious about doing a good thing for Thai society, he should encourage people to quit smoking, and not just urge them to "smoke responsibly".

 

No matter how hard people in the tobacco and its related industries try to justify the smoking habit, they cannot whitewash the fact that smoking is deadly.

 

Since lighters are closely associated with smoking, it is understandable why the Zippo shop owner is trying to paint a good image for smoking and his products. But Zippadeedoo's "smoke responsibly" campaign, which is based on the assumption that it is impossible to stop people from smoking, really doesn't work. Such an assumption is also questionable.

 

Is it true that we can't stop people from smoking? And even if it were true, the next question is: why? Is it because the tobacco industry spends vast amounts of money on tobacco advertising and lobbying governments to relax tobacco controls and regulations?

 

I have no personal problem with Mr Rangsun's Zippo business and I am not a hardcore anti-smoking campaigner. I respect the smokers' right to puff away, so long as they smoke in designated areas and do not violate other people's right to clean air.

 

What is unacceptable here is the attempt to cover up the negative side of a business or a product with some "look-good" stunt _ a practice that is being widely used by the business sector.

 

Instead of mitigating the environmental and social impact of their businesses, many industrial operators create a publicity scheme in the name of CSR to turn the public's attention away from the damage caused by their operations, and to create better public acceptance for their products and companies.

 

For example, a power plant operator sponsors a marine conservation project, but the firm never stops releasing hot water from its cooling system into the sea, thereby harming marine animals.

 

A petrochemical firm boasts about its reforestation project but continues to chop down trees so it can lay a pipeline for transporting natural gas.

 

A family which owns and operates an electrical goods company holds a charity concert to mobilise money for children needing organ transplants. But this very same company refuses to pay compensation to a group of people who became disabled and ill from its reckless storage of radioactive materials.

 

Encouraging people to smoke responsibly, donating money to local conservation groups, or investing in reforestation projects are all good initiatives.

 

But the public must not get carried away by these "good deeds". We must keep on pressing these companies to mitigate the adverse impact of their businesses and stop reaping benefits at the expense of the environment and consumers' health.

 

Business operators should not be allowed to use these activities as a licence to continue polluting the environment, destroying fisherfolk's livelihood, denying compensation for people affected by their recklessness, or damaging people's health with harmful products.

 

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