The development of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and challenges of Environmental and Social Reporting in Bangladesh

Abstract

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been recognised as corporation’s strategic tools to response the social obligation and corporation’s sustainability. The meaning and importance of CSR has been changed over time. At the inception, CSR was the obligation to pursue corporation policies and decision based on the desirable objectives and values of the society. But now corporate social responsibility is regarded as corporate sustainability and corporate citizenship. In this paper we have analysed content of 70 (Out of 123) audited corporate annual reports listed in the Dhaka Stock exchange of Bangladeshi companies. Realizing the importance of CSR we have attempted to find out the development of CSR, and formulate a strategic corporate CSR model for Bangladeshi Companies and justified the model compared with the international companies CSR activities. We have also identified the challenges of environmental and social reporting. We found that it is very hard to segregate environmental cost and social audit as they are arisen number of ways. The environment and social audit are not mandatory and should be reported in the notes to the financial statements.

Key words: Corporate Social Responsibility, Strategic CSR Model, Challenges of Environmental costs, Social Reporting