Despite the political noise, 90 % of big businesses continue to contribute a significant amount of time and money on Corporate Social Investment.
This is according to the newly-released 2017 Business in Society handbook.
The research shows that many corporates continue to fund a big portion of their CSI on education, health and community service projects.
Almost two thirds of companies reported an increase in Corporate Social Investment expenditure this year- up from 51% last year to 62 % in 2017.
The most common reason given for the CSI expenditure was increased corporate profits.
Total estimated CSI expenditure in 2017 was R 9.1 billion.
Nick Rockey, Trialogue Managing Director, says despite complaints from unions and some politicians that big businesses are not doing enough for society, the research shows otherwise.
“This is a report of how companies are investing in the society and it carries research and opinion pieces, in general the trends are consistent.”
Almost half of the companies used their CSI budgets on educational projects.
Cathy Duff, Trialogue Director, says half of the CSI funding goes towards tertiary education.
“As for the previous 20 years the top sector consistently has been education. So over 90 % of companies support projects in the education field and roughly half of all expenditure goes towards education. In provinces we find that half of the spend is based on the economic hubs of South Africa. So majority of the spend goes to Gauteng, Western Cape and KZN. This is to be expected as corporates fund in areas of their operation.”
Social and community development was the second most supported CSI sector.
Cath Duff says, the research shows that many mining companies continued to invest in social projects despite diminishing and declining profit margins this year:
“It’s a bit of a catch hole but it includes general community development like some of the work the mines are doing around community infrastructure and community support. But also support for orphan and migrant children, elderly and basically the marginalised in the society . that is then followed by health. ”
Rockey says there should be corporation between companies and government especially when there are big social projects that need to be transferred to government:
“You can’t deliver a social solution in isolation and companies need to start engaging these different stakeholders and projects need to work with these different stakeholders. But unfortunately those relations break down, so you might have a situation where there is an agreement in place, part funding by company, part funding by government an obligation that one the facility has been built for someone to manage and sometimes those plans don’t come. And that’s the complexity of this space that we are working in.”
Trialogue Director, Cathy Duff further elaborates:
“Companies need to collaborate but it’s difficult and its challenging to work with government and civil society and a bigger collaboration towards a common objective.”
The Business in Society, previously known as the Trialogue CSI handbook, has been the leading publication on Corporate Social Investment in South Africa for two decades.
It provides data and understanding about the impact of business on social development.
More than 81 % of companies that participated in the research had an annual income of over one billion rands, employing more than 5000 people.
There were 92 participating companies from various sectors of the economy.
