Corporate Responsibility Forum: Strategies for Competitiveness and Shared Value

IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, assembled over 200 private sector and civil society professionals to discuss ways companies can maximize the positive impact they have through community investments in developing countries.

Participants at the 2010 IFC Corporate Responsibility Forum, held June 15-17, agreed that as expectations for corporate involvement in addressing development challenges increase, the measure of success has shifted from amount of dollars spent to the degree of impact achieved. This calls for more sophisticated approaches and tools that can help companies apply greater rigor in the way they select sustainability investments and measure the value they create both for local communities and the business. 

“We saw a need for clients to take a strategic approach and quantify the great work they are doing through their community investments,” said Rachel Kyte, IFC Vice President for Business Advisory Services. “This presents an opportunity for companies to transform the way community investment is approached and maximize the positive impact they are having on the ground.”

IFC also introduced participants to its Financial Valuation Tool, co-developed with Rio Tinto and Deloitte, which allows companies to measure the financial value of community investments at specific projects around the world. IFC clients Newmont Mining and Cairn India shared their experiences piloting the tool at their operations in Ghana and India. 

MATERIALS

• Agenda
• Participant List
• Speaker Bios
• Forum Summary

PRESENTATIONS

June 15: A Strategic Framework for Corporate Responsibility

• IFC: Building blocks for a corporate sustainability strategy
• Dow Chemicals: Science for a Sustainable World
• McKinsey & Company: Creating Value from Sustainability Investments
• ERC: The Egyptian Refining Company

June 16: Focusing on Community Investment

• IFC's Strategic Community Investment Handbook Presentation 
• Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy: From Well-Meaning to Strategic
• Dialog Telekom's CR Business Case
• Arcelor Mittal: Strategic Community Investment transforming tomorrow in Liberia
• Veracel Celulose S.A.: Engaging the community to generate local development
• Chevron's Community Partnerships in Nigeria
• Strategic Tools for Monitoring and Evaluation: The Dialog Story
• Chevron Nigeria GMOUs:Participatory Stakeholder Evaluation
• BCS: Designing Effective Exit Strategies 
• Statoil’s approach to exit strategy for Social Investment projects
• World Cocoa Foundation: Strategies for Working with Rural Communities
• FAO: Supporting the Preparation of Sustainable Rural Investment Projects 

June 17: Measuring Return on Investment

• Planning and Financial Valuation Model for Sustainability Investments
• Rio Tinto: Business drivers to asses the return on sustainability
• Penn Schoen Berland: Green Bands Survey
• FSG: Insights on Measurement of Shared Value Systems
• CBSR: Measuring Community Impact
• Pilot of Financial Valuation Tool at Newmont
• Pilot of Financial Valuation Tool at Cairn India

BACKGROUND READING

To download a copy of IFC's Handbook on Strategic Community Investment, please click here.

To download the Planning and Financial Valuation Tool Presentation, please click here.