Corporate social responsibility practices for sustainability: case of Sri Lankan cement manufacturing and supplying organisations

Abstract

Construction industry is a booming industry worldwide and achieving sustainability in the construction industry has become a vital ambition. Nowadays, the concept of sustainability with its triple bottom line meaning is being adopted more and more by corporations and concerning construction trade, sustainability is about achieving a winwin output. Cement organisations’ business is a crucial sub-segment of the construction industry. Apart from the frequent monetary benefits from the cement organisations, it is increasingly linked to various unethical business practices form numerous challenges that threaten sustainability in cement industry. Thus, in the direction to achieve corporate sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) was recognized as an effective tool. Sri Lankan cement manufacturing and supplying organizations usually publish details about CSR practices of the philanthropic, business environment and business process in their annual business reports. Therefore, this qualitative study based on five in-depth interviews focused on identifying the Sri Lankan cement companies’ gap between their current practice and required practice of CSR within their business process. The results found could be categorised under three main sectors as CSR through philanthropic activities, CSR related to business environment and CSR related to business process. It was found that; Sri Lankan cement organizations’ CSR practices related to philanthropic and business environment were at highest level. Even though there is a significant lacking point in the current practices of CSR linked to the business process and application of sustainable innovations for cement organisations’ business process to achieve corporate sustainability.