Government should promote an understanding of CSR among businesses in Indonesia, a CSR conference in Jakarta has been told.
So far the Indonesian government has promoted CSR only internally
within companies, requiring them, for example, to enrol employees in
pension and social insurance schemes, said Ani Rahadjo, General
Electric’s engagement and corporate citizenship manager for Asia. She
believed companies’ responsibility to society had not been properly
promoted by the state and that most businesses would comply if there
was a law compelling them to meet CSR standards.
However, Aloys Nugroho, a business ethics professor at Atma Jaya
University in Jakarta, said ethical awareness had to come from
companies themselves – they should realize that CSR involves performing
good works and avoiding harmful activities.
Legislation would be unwise, countered Okti Damayanti, communications
manager of the Peduli Foundation, a Unilever agency with the task of
implementing CSR in the group. ‘We have too many regulations here,’ she
said. ‘The best way for the government to motivate local companies to
practise CSR is to provide incentives for those that do so.’
