Making social investment part of our business - CSR in Europe, Middle East and Africa -
CSR in Europe, Middle East and Africa » Making social investment part of our business
Making social investment part of our business
Doing good in local communities is a wonderful opportunity for a company to demonstrate its CSR belief. Sometimes it is rather challenging to support community projects and to contribute to solve social issues which at the same time are burning issues but also correspond with a company´s business strategy and core competencies. At HP, our core competencies are clearly with IT technology and the expertise of our people.

You can easily imagine how many valid requests for support a company like HP receives regularly. To have a stronger impact with our available resources and to be able to make sustainable contributions in the markets where we do our business, this year we came up with a more streamlined strategy for our social investment.

I recently came across a podcast produced by Ethical Corporation interviewing Microsoft UK's Head of Corporate Reputation and Diversity Bronwyn Kunhardt where she
discusses some of the rationale of integrating CSR and business goals. It is always valuable and interesting to see what other corporations do in CSR. And there are many good programs and approaches out there. But each company has its own values and beliefs and has finally to decide on its priorities.

We have evaluated the areas where we can expect to make the biggest difference which are: Education, Environment and Economic Development. We are offering related programs in 20 countries in our region and shape them according to local community needs.

Even if we understand that as a company we can only do so much and we are not able to solve social issues alone, I believe it is important to stay focused within the multitude of opportunities and to collaborate with qualified partners. Then it becomes more obvious where a company like HP makes a difference and it´ll be easier to measure the outcome of our investment, too.

Jeannette Weisschuh, Head of Corporate Affairs, HP EMEA
Posted 03-12-2007 9:43 PM by BlogArchive
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