Webmaster Update

Sorry folks, it has been way too long since CSR Bangers have been updated. Don’t fret, I have not given up on this website yet. It has been a little dead since I have been uber busy with work during December. But I have a few articles on draft which I hope to put up soon so stay tuned…

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Focus, NST: “Reworking the CSR concept” pg 38

There was a very interesting article in Sunday’s (30/11/2008) New Straits Times regarding CSR written by Mike Chiam, a council member of the Malaysian Empoyers Federation and chairman of the Human Resource Bureau of the SMI Association of Malaysia. You can currently read the article here.

The article touched on issues such as the extention of what is known as  “stakeholders” where it is now not only shareholders and investors who are considered as stakeholders.

Another interesting thing mentioned was in regards to Socially responsible investment. Where Malaysian investors stand on this point and whether Malaysian investor’s would take into account whether or not a company is socially responsible when deciding to invest in that certain company is still unknown. Personally, I still feel many Malaysians wouldn’t give a stuff about it. Whaddya all reckon?

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Sunway University leading the way in moulding young minds towards CSR. Thumbs up!

A couple of months back the 2008 Undergraduate Business Students Conference on Corporate Social Responsibility is jointly organised by Sunway University College, the Sunway Group, CPA Australia and KPMG.

This was reported on the CSR Malaysia’s website over here. (on 28/08/08)

Firstly, hats off to the Sunway group and its participating partners. I think for far too long in Malaysia, our emphasis of education for our business students have always been making the big $$$. As quoted from the CSR Malaysia article, Dr. Foo Yin Fah, Head of the Australian University Programme at Sunway University College specifically mentioned that:-

“Through this conference, we hope to infuse the CSR mindset amongst undergraduate students by profiling organisations that do not only practice profit maximization, but also behave responsibly towards their community at large,”

In order for Malaysia to lead the way in CSR in the SEA region, it is very important that Malaysia is able to educate it’s future business leaders on the importance of CSR and in the 3 different aspects of triple bottom line (Financial, Social and Enviromental). Old minds maybe hard to mould but it is the youth who are more receptive and are the ones to determine Malaysia’s future success.

Will any other university step up and follow Sunway’s lead??

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Penang Municipal Council to implement Coupon parking by June 2009.

This came out in the Star Metro last Friday. Based on the report, the Penang Municipal Council will abolish both the metered parking system and parking attendant system once the ‘scratch and display’ prepaid coupon parking system is introduced.

Now although it can be argued that the City Council does not actually “fall” into the fit definition of a corporation, government councils certainly do owe a duty of accountability and trust towards the public even more so than corporates do. They run indirectly on our tax money and have the main reason of a council’s existence is for it to be mainly responsible for the particular city that they are in charge of.

This recent move by the Penang City Council if implemented will certainly be beneficial financially as the printing cost of these scratch coupons would be cheaper than the cost of maintaining parking meters as they are usually vandalised. It would also benefit users as these machines are usually dodgy (ie. Not working in the morning but suddenly works in the afternoon. Then thinking that the machine is spoilt when you come to work in the morning you don’t put coins in but in the afternoon a nice ‘love note’ is left by the city council) and it saves drivers the trouble of keeping too many coins in the car thus reducing the risk of theft and break-ins.

However my cause of concern would be that with the coupon system this could mean greater paper wastage. Will the coupons be able to be recycled after use? Or will it at LEAST be printed on recycled paper?

What would most probably happen is that after a user is done with the coupon he/she would throw it in the rubbish bin. My suggestion for the council is to implement a reward system to entice users to not throw away their coupons but instead collect them and return them to the council for them to recycle. Something in the effect of “Bring back 100 used coupons, get a RM 10 discount off your next fine.” This could at least reduce our landfill in Jelutong which already looks like an eyesore. (Click here to have a look.)

Another thing that bothers me would be that many parking attendants would be jobless once the coupon system is implemented. Alright. Some of these guys are assholes. They overcharge, will force you to pay a fixed rate which is their own and most assholes never issue a proper receipt but there are some good ones out there who never overcharge and who are polite and are willing to even save you a nice parking lot outside your office. But even then, just think about it, assholes are bad enough. Jobless assholes might eventuate to crimes.

According to the report, Tan (Council financial management subcommittee alternate chairman) mentioned that the council was trying to help the 114 legal parking attendants so that they would not lose their jobs after the introduction of the coupon system. He recommended that the council will look into employing these parking attendants as future coupon agents.

To be honest, I do not know how the MPPP parking attendant system works. Would they sufficiently earn enough as coupon agents as compared to parking attendants? I am sure that the council will also sell these coupons at convenience stores and 7-11, so would the parking attendants be able to sell sufficient coupons to earn enough to enjoy a decent living?

All these factors will have to be taken into account before the council implements this new parking system. Just because it is cost beneficial in the short run, environmental and social factors may come and haunt your ass down the road some day.

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A win for Obama, A win for the enviornment and alternative energies?

Obama has now created history.

Now when he enters the white house in early January he faces the two most important challenges:-

1. To revive the US economy
2. To find alternative energy resources

Will he be able to do it? Only time will tell, only time will tell.