During their third round of the CSR Label awarding ceremony, the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry honoured three Dubai-based companies for their contribution to adopt and lead best corporate social responsibility and sustainability practices in their organisations.

du, QBG and the Nail Spa are the three companies which were bestowed with the Dubai Chamber CSR Label during a special presentation ceremony held at the Emirates Towers hotel in Dubai recently. This recognition standard, initiated by Dubai Chamber last May, provides a good platform for public recognition of corporate social responsibility efforts and contributions by companies across different economic sectors.

Dr. Belaid Rettab, Senior Director, Economic Research and Sustainable Business Development Sector, Dubai Chamber, presented the CSR Label certificates to the receiving companies. He said that the Dubai Chamber CSR Label 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.

Dr. Rettab further stressed that the CSR Label provides an opportunity for the participating companies to identify best responsible practices and to discover their strengths and weaknesses while dealing with the effects of their commercial activities on the business environment and the society. It also helps them apply responsible business practices in their company’s internal operations including performance appraisal and overall development of the organisation.

Said Dr. Rettab, “Since its launch last May, the CSR Label, which is the first of its kind programme in the Middle East, has generated a lot of interest across a cross-section of organisations irrespective of their type or size and helped them to adopt international best practices with regard to CSR and sustainability. The programme encouraged them to apply responsible business practices to their day-to-day working environment, besides establishing a reference within the Dubai business community as well as contributing to the society at large.”

Hala Badri, Executive Vice President, Brand and Communications, du, said: “Our corporate mission is to add ‘life to life,’ and this recognistion by Dubai Chamber for our efforts towards our corporate social responsibility is an honour. Receiving the CSR Label is representative of our dedication to improving the communities that we serve, be it in terms of economy, ecology or sociality.”

She added: “We would like to thank Dubai Chamber for presenting us with this honour, and we extend our congratulations to other organisations for receiving this proud recognition alongside us.”

Mr. Deepak Sharma, CEO, QBG said: ”Dubai Chamber has taken a commendable step in introducing CSR Label for organisations who demonstrate CSR activities as an essential part of its business operations, For QBG, CSR is not a one-off philanthropic activity but an internal part of our business strategy. Plans are carefully identified then executed capitalising on our strengths and considering where we can make valuable contributions on our customers, employees, society and environment.

“The feedback from Dubai Chamber highlighted the fact that CSR is a strategic investment and if we can improve on our gaps we surely are on our way towards re-modeling ourselves as one of the few companies having morale for CSR. We sincerely feel that every company should sign up for the CSR Label to re-invent themselves as this will be very evident by the end of the assessment as to where one stands,” added Mr Sharma.

Said Shabana Karim, Managing Director, Nail Spa, “For us, the CSR Label is a recognition of being a good corporate citizen. It reflects our commitment to all our stakeholders, clients, employees, communities, suppliers and government officials. In a way, this also guides and drives us as to how we move forward as a company. The payback is definitely huge; for us as a company and as a contributor for the larger environment and society.”

Previous companies who have been awarded the CSR Label are Emirates Gas, Intercoil International LLC, Mashreq bank, Commercial Bank of Dubai, Standard Chartered, 3W Networks and FedEx.

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.