Social security and green growth will be the new "playground" for businesses

Enterprises implementing social security, green growth will contribute to economic growth, economic restructuring, this is also a responsibility from both sides of the enterprises and the social community. Photo: S.T.

Revenue increases by 25% thanks to social responsibility

The time when companies only competed with price and difference on a product are over. Nowadays, businesses must create sustainable competition, taking into account a synchronization of factors when planning their competitive strategies, such as: health, society, environment, saving natural resources, maintaining biodiversity.

In fact, according to the survey conducted recently by the Institute of Labor Science and Social Affairs (The Ministry of Labor – Invalids and Social Affairs) at 50 enterprises in the textile and footwear sector, thanks to the implementation of the “Corporate Social Responsibility” program, the revenue of these enterprises increased by 25%, the labor productivity increased revenue from 34.2 to 35.8 million VND/worker/year, the proportion of exports increased from 94% to 97%.

Enterprises implementing social security well will contribute to increasing labor productivity, efficiency and profitability, enhance competitiveness, increase productivity, promote sustainable development, and promote enterprises to improve the national and international standards on working conditions and community support. At the same time, businesses will create a team of employees who love their work, proud of their company and work hard for the mutual benefit of their "great family”.

Mr. Vu Xuan Truong, Research Institute for Brand and Competitiveness Strategy said that green quality is now a strategic weapon as many companies are applying it to better their competitive edge, show a better difference, better protection, for a larger market share. When participating in the implementation of regulations on social responsibility and green growth, businesses will gain benefits such as: improving their image and brand; creating opportunities for enterprises to participate deeply in the global supply chain in the context of the international economic integration, reducing costs and improving production efficiency of enterprises.

Another significant benefit is to help businesses reduce their costs and improve their production efficiency in the long term by investing, converting technologies and processes that are environmentally friendly. This will help enterprises improve their competitive position in the market, especially in the trend of more and more countries promoting and implementing national programs on green procurement and consumption today.

At the corporate level, Mr. Rad Kivette, CEO of Vinacapital Fund, cites international studies indicating that 55% of consumers are willing to pay a higher price for a product if the company performs well in social responsibility; 65% of the 500 largest companies in the world voted by Forbes magazine have also linked donations to their workers with humanitarian activities; 93% of the world's largest companies have released their annual Corporate Social Responsibility reports.

Need for parallelism from the State

Dr. Vo Tri Thanh, director of the Research Institute for Brand and Competitiveness Strategy, said that businesses implementing social security, green growth will contribute to economic growth, economic restructuring, it is also a responsibility from both sides of the enterprises and government, social community.

In spite of such obvious results, according to Mr. Nguyen Van Hoi, Director General of Department of Social Protection (Ministry of Labor – Invalids and Social Affairs), the commitments of Vietnamese enterprises to the activities promoting green production and lifestyle is very limited; policies promoting green growth and social responsibility of businesses still need more time to get into life values to be transformed to a new level.

The cause of this situation is that over 97% of businesses are small, micro, and lack awareness of social tasks and sustainable growth. Besides, their research and development of human resources are in short supply, weak in quality and technology, they are not capable of carrying out research and development for technological innovation.

Also pointed out were the difficulties and challenges for Vietnamese enterprises when implementing green growth. Mr. Tran Nhat Tan, Deputy head of the Research Department, Vibiz Information Center, said that according to the Center’s survey, 70% of businesses do not know about the green certification in Vietnam; 51.3% of businesses do not care about climate change; 62% of businesses are not willing to invest in green products; 89.3% of enterprises do not receive any support and incentives from the State in their production and trading of green products; 69.5% of businesses said that the cost of converting production models to producing clean products is very high; 50% of enterprises lack technology and human resources to carry out green growth.

Analyzing the investment direction of enterprises when implementing green growth, Dr. Pham Hoang Mai, Director of the Department of Science, Education, Natural Resources and Environment (Ministry of Planning and Investment), stated that one of the reasons is that the policy is still slow, does not keep pace with the general development progress of science, technology, has not made a clear change. Many policies are not strong enough to motivate businesses to invest in green growth. In particular, limited resources are available. Many policies are not strong enough to motivate businesses to spend their capital on green growth. Financial instruments are not flexible and cannot meet the requirements of enterprises.