The Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry presented the CSR Label certificates to five Dubai-based companies including Al Fara'a Group, Axiom Telecom, TNT Express, Bank Sarasin Alpen Group and Alpen Capital Group during a presentation ceremony held at its head office recently.

H.E. Hamad Buamim, Director General, Dubai Chamber, who presented the certificates to the receiving companies during the presentation ceremony stated that the CSR Label certificates were presented to the companies for their contribution to adopt and lead best corporate social responsibility and sustainability practices in their organisations. 

"The CSR Label gives these companies a framework to implement CSR initiatives within their daily operations. It helps them to promote these schemes amongst their staff members, and then also to have their efforts recognised publicly," said Buamim.

He added that the Dubai Chamber CSR Label, which is the first of its kind programme in the Middle East, is a journey to learn, assess, monitor and improve individual CSR strategies and practices by businesses. It is a direct recognition and reward programme for good CSR practices as it helps companies to communicate their progress with customers and other stakeholders.

Buamim further stressed that the winners operate in completely different industries, vary in size and scope, and have diverse business goals and objectives. However, they all have decided to integrate CSR into their governance and strategy and have shown a remarkable performance.

Dr J.R. Gangaramani, President and Executive Chairman, Al Fara'a Group, said: "Corporate Social Responsibility is of paramount importance to the Al Fara'a Group, and we go that extra mile to integrate strong social and environmental advocacies in our bottom lines. The continuous horizontal and vertical growth of Al Fara'a is due in part to our thorough understanding of CSR being intrinsically linked to the concept of sustainable development. It is a fundamental ethos that underscores and reinforces the entire gamut of our operations and methodologies. In the context of modern economics, good corporate citizenship is no longer a novelty "add-on" to standard core activities, but a tangible metric of effective management and business foresight. 

"As the world today becomes smaller and markets become more accessible due to globalization, we will see even more companies adopting CSR and engaging it as a significant part of Corporate Strategy. On behalf of the Al Fara'a Group, I express my gratitude and appreciation to the wise and visionary leadership of this great Nation for their patronage and the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry for recognizing our efforts in being a conduit of positive change for our stakeholders and the community." 

Said Faisal Albannai, CEO, Axiom Telecom, "At Axiom we are very conscious about all our processes and their impact on the surroundings and hence we are working in all possible ways and means to reduce or eliminate the negative impact to become a socially responsible organisation , and the CSR label reaffirms that." 

Added Rohit Walia, Executive Vice Chairman & CEO, Bank Sarasin-Alpen Group, "Sustainability is the core of our corporate philosophy and is reflected in our interaction with our clients, employees as well as stakeholders. Through our initiatives, I hope we have made a difference not only to those whose lives we have touched, but also in terms of highlighting the responsibility that organisations have, irrespective of their size of operation, towards the community.
"We believe that performance is not just about numbers and the key to a successful organisation is taking its performance beyond numbers and contributing to the community that you live and work in."

Said Mark Pell, Country General Manager, TNT Express UAE, "The CSR Label is recognition by the Dubai Chamber of TNT Express UAE corporate responsibility achievements. The CSR Label framework and subsequent assessment helped the organisation take a holistic review of its corporate responsibility activities which will improve TNT Express' CSR practices. At TNT Express we place significant emphasis on our obligations to society; whether reducing CO2 emissions or contributing towards people with special needs in our community." 

Developed by Dubai Chamber Centre for Responsible Business, the Dubai Chamber CSR Label is part of a learning programme which provides access to supporting products such as toolkits, networking seminars and training workshops. The Centre offers a variety of educational, professional training and consulting services that are designed to build individual companies' capacity to implement broad CSR programmes including business ethics, sustainability reporting and corporate governance.