In Mexico the CSR distinctive is given by a NGO called CEMEFI (Centro Mexicano para la Filantropia). The CEMEFI gives the opportunity to every company to qualify for CSR. In order to do this a company must do a self diagnosis, and fill out and send different forms accompanied with evidence. Those forms and evidence are audited by the CEMEFI.
The CSR Distinctive credits the company with employees, investors, customers, authorities and society in general, to assume voluntary public commitment to socially responsible management, as part of their culture and business strategy.
The CSR Distinctive commits the company to comply with the proposed standards for “Life Quality within the company, " "Business Ethics”, “Company’s linage with the community " and "Care and preservation of the environment. "
· Life quality within the company
· Business Ethics
· Company’s linkage with the community
· Care and preservation of the environment
CSR pyramid:
As the CSR Pyramid illustrates, businesses have a primary economic responsibility to “be profitable.” Over this foundational responsibility there are three additional responsibilities: the legal one to obey the law, the ethical one to do what’s right and avoid harm, and the philanthropic one to be a good corporate citizen.
Here we can see, that the four points required by the CEMEFI addresses the two top levels of the pyramid, but fail to address the first two levels, which are very important in terms of obeying the law (which is a society’s codification of right and wrong), and in terms of the primary economic responsibility to “be profitable.”
An example of a company that I believe is illustrative of a good example of CSR in practice is “Pronosticos para la asistencia publica”. I selected this company, because they are the largest government lottery organization which donates most of its earnings to charity. My basis is that it is well known in Mexico that they help the Mexican society by fulfilling their mission of “Maximize the generation of resources to support national priorities in education and health, by developing the best sweepstakes that meet the expectations of Mexican society, supporting the development of their employees and distribution channels under a scheme of confidentiality, integrity, availability, growth and transparency.”
An example of a company that I believe is illustrative of a bad example of CSR in practice is “Telcel”, the largest mobile carrier provider in Mexico. I selected this company because Telcel was created thanks to the earnings of Telmex, the first telephone land line private provider. However, it is well known that Telmex was created under various corrupted circumstances between Carlos Slim (a powerful businessman) and the Mexican government. For several years Telmex provided an expensive and poor communication service with almost no client services since it was the only land line company in Mexico (a monopoly). Now Telcel is the largest mobile provider in Mexico, but they keep practicing monopolistic practices such as high prices and hidden charges, which affect the majority of the Mexican population. That being said, Telcel endorsed the CSR label under their supposed commitment of continuous telecommunications development in the country, bringing their customers the best coverage and highest quality mobile communication services in more than 90% of the inhabited areas of Mexico where it operates. This is true, but they don’t do anything to lower their prices to really benefit the whole society.
A business practice that is well known and in some cases acceptable in Mexico is bribery, even though it is prohibited by the law. Many government organizations still promote under the table bribery in order to e able to sell to them. This practice conflicts with one of the three fundamental guiding principles of “respect for core human values”, because through bribery integrity is broken thus, promoting corporate and personal corruption in order to sell to a certain government organization.
As a manager in my country I can say that none of the firms that I’ve worked with would be able to sign on to and abide by the UNGC’s Ten Global Principles. This, because even most of the firms where I’ve worked in covered most of the first six Global Principles of Human Rights and Labor, they fail to address the last four points of environment and anticorruption.
Generally speaking the companies that I’ve worked with cared about the employee’s well being, and they make sure that they are not complicit in human rights abuse. Additionally I’ve never seen any kind of compulsory labor or discrimination. However, I never saw any environmental preoccupation such as less energy consumption or promoting any kind on friendly technology. These firms were more focused on profits and because of that some of these firms felt into some form of bribery in order to accomplish a specific sale or objective.
