The State of CSR in Australia - ACCSR’s 5th Annual Conference
2 February 2012 at 11:31 am
With mining and agriculture as the biggest industries, value creation in Australia has a tense relationship to Corporate Social Responsibility, according to visiting CSR expert, US Professor Dirk Matten who will be a keynote speaker at ACCSR’s upcoming 5th Annual Conference in Melbourne.
ACCSR, the Australian Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility’s 5th annual conference aims to inspire, explore and support the relationship between CSR and innovation.
The innovative conference will focus on how organisations shift their attention from risk management to value creation in the Australian business context.
The Conference will host international guest, Professor Dirk Matten, Hewlett-Packard Chair in Corporate Social Responsibility at Schulich School of Business, from York University in Toronto.
“In Australia, many issues appear to be rather domestically driven: Aboriginal issues or climate change are all rather close to home. It strikes me, that with mining and agriculture as the biggest industries, value creation in Australia has a tense relationship to CSR,” Prof Matten said.
“Australia is in the middle of an economic boom, fuelled by the hunger for resources of emerging powers in Asia. That has brought a lot of money into the country, but business needs to have a better story about how this wealth is going to be shared.
“As comfortable as exporting commodities might look, Australia lacks the innovative capacity to keep more of the value adding processes in the future life cycle of these resources at home.
“This highlights the conference topic. innovation of business process has to benefit society at large, in order to be sustainable. CSR as a driver of innovation can provide an opportunity for exciting new business solutions in Australia.”
Prof Malcolm McIntosh, the Director Asia Pacific Centre for Sustainable Enterprise at Griffith Business School will is also a keynote speaker at the Conference.
“We are at a point where most senior business leaders in enlightened companies understand that sustainability is a key strategic issue, but the evidence is that many of them don't know exactly what to do,” he said.
“This is partly because many companies don't know what their social and environmental impact is so developing strategy and operational procedures to address the issue is way down the line.
“But, the other most immediate issue seems to be education to bring management up to speed on a range of issues that threaten not just business but society. These include climate change, resource depletion, population and demographics, and corruption,” Prof McIntosh said.
THE INNOVATION IMPERATIVE: Taking CSR from Risk Management to Value Creation
When: Wednesday 15th February 2012
Where: Auditorium, Ground Floor, NAB, 800 Bourke St, Docklands
ACCSR’s top line up of speakers will explore The Innovation Imperative from different angles, ranging from industry level approaches to stakeholder engagement, social entrepreneurship, smart supply chain practices, unique partnership programs between For and Not for Profits and corporate approaches to indigenous relations.
Concurrent Round Table dialogues will allow for discussions and networking whilst traditional views on CSR may be challenged.
Some of the other expert speakers include:
- DR KEN HENRY, Director NAB and former Treasury Secretary
- PROFESSOR MCINTOSH, Director Asia Pacific Centre for Sustainable Enterprise, Griffith Business School
- BEN WATERS, Director ecomagination, GE Australia/NZ
- SIMON MCKEON, Chair CSIRO and 2011 Australian of the Year
- JANE GRONOW, Principal Advisor, Communities and Social Performance, Rio Tinto
- ALLAN HANSARD, Advisor for the Australian Government in the Tasmanian Forest Intergovernmental Agreement process, former CEO of the National Association of Forest Industries (NAFI)
To book online go to www.secureregistrations.com/accsr2012/
For more information call 03 9389 0303
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