HARARE The CSR Network Zimbabwe (CSRNZ) which is Zimbabwe premier organisation for CSR and Sustainability last Friday awarded Zimbabwe top 5 Zimbabwe CSR oriented Chief Executives at the 6th Zimbabwe annual national Responsible Business and CSR awards held in the capital.
The Top CEOs were
As follows: –
- Samuel Matsekete
- Shepherd Fungura
- Roy Chimanikire
- Adelaide Chikunguru
- Wilfred Matukeni
- Charles Ndondo
See below the CSR Network Zimbabwe Board Chairman’s speech at the awards ceremony: –
It is a great honour and pleasure to be among you this evening as we jointly celebrate the achievements of the top businesses in Zimbabwe, who have demonstrated excellence in terms of responsible business, environmental management and corporate social responsibility during the course of year 2022. I am both excited and humbled by the desire you have shown to be part of this momentous gathering, which is clear testimony that we are all passionate about a common and shared vision on issues of sustainability and social responsibility.
I would like to thank you.
These annual awards, which we are hosting tonight were preceded provincial awards that were held countrywide and tonight, we celebrate at national level the combined achievements of all of you, for the work that you are doing to positively impact on stakeholders, the lives of communities, as well as the environments in which you operate. You certainly deserve the recognition; it is well earned.
As we have always mentioned at all our award ceremonies, these are not competition-based awards; but are a platform for befitting acknowledgement and celebration for all our combined efforts. We are all winners tonight as we are bound by one common goal of changing the fortunes of our vulnerable communities in our quest to achieve vision 2030.
Ladies and gentlemen tonight we are celebrating your hard work of delivering and pioneering new strategies as well as sharing what it takes to be one of Zimbabwe’s leading responsible businesses.
Just two weeks ago, we as the CSRNZ ran a summit dubbed the 6th Responsible Business Summit in the resort town of Victoria Falls, which drew together various businesses, both public and private. The aim of this summit was to share strategies and solutions that tackle sustainability issues and demand business leaders to show that they are leading the change to a sustainable and resilient future.
Some of the key take aways from this summit included the following needs that we ought to pursue:
- To push for a national policy on CSR framework that promotes sustainability reporting
- Government support through incentivizing & having CSR friendly tax policies
- Partnerships between councils & businesses to ensure safe, clean cities
- Train organisations on Sustainability Reporting, whether resources are adequate or not, truthfully sharing the impact, potential or actual, negative or positive to enable businesses to find solutions
- Commitment to efficiency & compliance as well partnerships & collaboration rather than competition.
With the shift towards ESG globally, the need for sustainability reporting is certainly catching up with us in this part of the world and CSR is a huge part of the whole mix. We therefore as businesses need to seriously invest in activities that create shared value between ourselves and our stakeholders, whilst creating legacies that outlive all of us. There ought to be more to business than just the top and bottom lines, the future of the communities we operate in should be safeguarded. Having said all that, my promise to you as CSR Network Zimbabwe board chairman is, we are committed to walking the journey with you, right from project conceptualization, through to its successful implementation. All you need to do is to reach out to us and we will gladly partner with you, therefore I am calling upon all of you to become our members and thus work together with us to achieve the tangible outputs. If you are not a part of us yet, what are you waiting for?
These awards have come at an opportune time when our government is pursuing the Devolution agenda where we must create regional or provincial sustainable economies that feed into the national economy. We can and should make a difference wherever we are, however we can and do our best to incorporate the SDGs as we seek our profits through our usual business lines.
Let me take this opportunity right away to congratulate all the recipients who we will recognize tonight. I am sure businesses in Zimbabwe are increasingly seeing the importance of placing sustainability at the heart of their operations. We want to see the longevity and utility of all our projects, way beyond ourselves to benefit generations to come. Above all, we want to see direct benefit to the investing companies in terms of both financial and non-financial benefits.
Ladies & Gentlemen, as we say to you year after year,
CSR is not a restaurant menu or an optional course at school.
It is more than a once-off set of initiatives or a glossy report.
It is about the Purpose of your business.
It is about transforming communities positively for a lifetime.
We therefore need to culture a strong tradition of community involvement regardless of the size of our businesses.
