Taking Responsibility

The company is linking LOI with The Lazare Diamond Incentive Program in the U.S. This program rewards Lazare Diamond retailers and their sales associates who sell and register Lazare Diamonds. LKI will make a matching donation to The Five Rand Primary School in the name of each sales associate for every registered Lazare Diamond.

LKI employees will also participate with direct donations as part of this initiative.

“The Lazare Ongama Initiative was formed to raise awareness of the educational struggles in Namibia and establish a cultural connection to this community” said Christine Tobias, Lazare’s Social Media sales coordinator.

“This is a way for LKI to thank their retailers and sales associates across the country for their support and spread awareness that diamonds contribute to the wellbeing of the Namibian people.”

LKI acts as technical advisors for the NamGem factory in Okahanja where they train and work with Namibians in polishing rough diamonds. The company also has a factory in Botswana.

Gitanjali Group Wins CSR Award

Such is its emphasis on responsibility that the Gitanjali Group last year won an award for its CSR work. The award was for its Saksham initiative, which has provided employment to more than 1,000 disabled people at its diamond- and jewelry-manufacturing units or trained them for jobs elsewhere.

The award was part of the Institute of India’s Public Enterprise’s corporate governance awards for 2012 and endorsed by the World CSR Congress, World CSR Day and the Asian Confederation of Business.

SRK Takes Home Award for Social Responsibility

Last year, DTC Sightholder Shree Ramkrishna Exports (SRK) won an award for being the “most socially responsible exporter” in 2012. The category award was among the awards for export excellence instituted by the Export Credit Guarantee Corporation of India (ECGC) and consultancy firm Dun & Bradstreet.

The award was presented by Indian Minister for Commerce, Industry and Textiles Anand Sharma  and accepted by company director Shreyans Dholakia.

A company statement said the award was “a milestone in SRK’s growth” and added, "success at SRK is not just about financial profits. It is a single harmonious entity encompassing organizational progress, customer satisfaction, our patrons’ goodwill and overall national, environmental and social well-being".

What is Corporate Social Responsibility?

Corporate social responsibility (CSR, also called corporate conscience, corporate citizenship, social performance, or sustainable responsible business/ Responsible Business) is a form of corporate self-regulation integrated into a business model.

CSR policy functions as a built-in, self-regulating mechanism whereby a business monitors and ensures its active compliance with the spirit of the law, ethical standards, and international norms. In some models, a firm's implementation of CSR goes beyond compliance and engages in "actions that appear to further some social good, beyond the interests of the firm and that which is required by law."

CSR is a process with the aim to embrace responsibility for the company's actions and encourage a positive impact through its activities on the environment, consumers, employees, communities, stakeholders and all other members of the public sphere who may also be considered as stakeholders.

The term "corporate social responsibility" came into common use in the late 1960s and early 1970s after many multinational corporations formed the term stakeholder, meaning those on whom an organization's activities have an impact. It was used to describe corporate owners beyond shareholders as a result of an influential book by R. Edward Freeman, Strategic management: a stakeholder approach in 1984.

Courtesy: Wikipedia.