JEDDAH — At this year’s Jeddah Economic Forum, business leaders heard the results of the first study done on the corporate social responsibility of Saudi companies. The findings were delivered by Asya Al-Ashaikh, founder of Tamkeen Development and Management Consulting, the first Saudi company dedicated to corporate social responsibility (CSR) issues. The company’s aim is to capitalize on current economic and business changes by designing innovative strategies and solutions to help stakeholders maximize their strategic impact and achieve their vision.
In an interview with Arab News last week, Al-Ashaikh spoke about her company and her perspectives on the future of women in Saudi Arabia. “For successful companies to survive, they have to be part of a healthy society,” she said. “If a company wants to benefit, it has to be active. It has to exercise its responsibility toward society. When a company gives back to society, it raises the status of the individual, which in turn increases the purchasing power of that individual. That increases the number of consumers of the company’s product. It is a very closely linked relationship. We need that (kind of relationship) in our society to deal with a lot of developmental challenges.”
Al-Ashaikh finds the reluctance of some businesses to embrace the concept of CSR a little difficult to understand in view of Islam’s long-standing tradition of giving. “The moment you talk to people about CSR, they get defensive,” she said. “They wrongly think it is a foreign concept. ‘Oh we have our ethics, our culture. Our Islamic values dictate that we give. And we do give. Giving is not new to our society,’ that is the reaction of many businesspeople. Oddly that was encouraging for me. That made my task easier. Some companies here would say, ‘In the West, CSR activities are tax deductible; we don’t have such a thing here.’ First of all not all projects in corporate social responsibility are tax deductible in the West. Only five percent is tax deductible. The rest are strategically planned projects linked to the core business of the company in order to engage with society or its employees or with the supply chain.”
Al-Ashaikh said that it was not a question of donating but rather a question of maximizing the impact of those activities. “Giving is deeply ingrained in us,” she said. “I tell the businesses to make it strategic. We at Tamkeen try to show them how it can be linked to the core business of the company — where everybody gains. You don’t give in isolation; you have to talk about it. There is something called reporting in CSR, which creates competition — positive competition. This is important. However, reporting is not considered important in our culture. In our culture your right hand does not and should not know what your left hand gives. That is true, but when you’re in a position of responsibility and you could really have a positive impact and encourage others by doing good, why shouldn’t you?”
Al-Ashaikh said it took some time to figure out how she could best serve companies with their CSR needs. That prompted the study, in partnership with Sweden’s International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics. It polled CEOs and senior management of most of the Kingdom’s Top 100 companies, many of whom lumped CSR in with their advertising budgets.
“We started creating partners in business in 2005,” she said. “We started with companies that had already started in that direction. By mid-2006, we were ready. We found out at that stage that there was a lot of confusion about the concept. The people who were working on CSR in companies were the public relations people — the marketing people. They hijacked the whole concept. They had no depth, no idea. They would come to you and would ask you to do something and called that corporate social responsibility. Of course, that appeals to companies, but there’s no factoring in of the concept of sustainability. For me, sustainability is the most important element — to link the companies directly with society.”
In 2003, Al-Ashaikh completed her master’s degree in Policy and Administration from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. When she returned to Saudi Arabia, she was determined to make a difference.
“The whole environment was so encouraging,” she recalled. “There was this wind of change blowing across the Kingdom. The environment for change was amazing. There was talk about economic reform. There was the new economic boom, the second boom. There was a greater awareness that this time we will make sense of this new boom and invest in human resources. That made my task easier. CSR is about investing in human development. So I just looked around and said: ‘This is a great opportunity,’ and here I am. It is a long-term investment. If I as a Saudi woman, a mother, won’t ride this wave, won’t take the initiative and do something for our next generation, then it will be a missed opportunity. I wouldn’t really expect a man to think along these lines.”
Al-Ashaikh praised Abdul Latif Jameel Co. Ltd., Savola and Saudi Aramco among many others as good role models for companies when it comes to corporate social responsibility. “ALJ has excelled in reporting, which is a key element of CSR. Savola has focused on values and ethics and a corporate governance system. Saudi Aramco has been doing CSR for a long time — giving back to society by building hospitals, schools, etc. Yet all of this is not the way it should be. It could have more impact. And, therefore, I say more needs to be done.”
Al-Ashaikh says that Saudi women have an important role to play in the coming years. “Women have a huge economic value to this country,” she said. “We read about the bank accounts they have. Even if they aren’t businesswomen, they can be investors in development programs. Women can do a lot. It is up to the women to make it or break it. Unfortunately, we don’t have that strategic outlook on things yet. We aren’t trained for that yet.”
The Riyadh native is confident about the future and, if anything, the challenges just make her all that more determined to overcome them. “I am just driven by passion about what I do,” Al-Ashaikh said. “I think when you’re genuinely committed to what you’re doing then things become easier. But let me add here that without the support of some men, starting off with my father, I wouldn’t be here. My father supported me and believed in what I am doing. Opposition and attitudinal problems are expected in our society. As a woman, I face a lot of challenges — a lot of challenges, but then there have always been challenges in Saudi Arabia for both men and women. I want to focus on the positive: On what I can do — not what I can’t do.”
