CORPORATE SUSTAINABILITY HANDPRINT (CSH)
“As a company operating internationally in the field of sustainable development, it is both our mandate and our mission to promote corporate sustainability as a matter of priority.”
Guidelines on Implementing the CSH (GIZ, 2016)
The CSH is one of the most important management instruments at GIZ’s disposal to improve sustainability performance at all levels of the company, focusing not only on the company’s ecological footprint, but also on its positive contributions in the four dimensions of sustainability (‘handprint’).
GIZ Thailand is also doing its bit: the Country Office started with the CSH process in September 2016, by first putting together a core CSH team composed of country office and project staff members. After the official Kick-Off event on 26th September, the team collected quantitative and qualitative data for the 4 fields of (sustainability) action:
- Economic capability
- Social responsibility
- Ecological balance
- Political participation
Through the data collection process, which covered 100% of country office operations and some aspects of project office operations, the CSH team could assess the status-quo of GIZ Thailand’s current sustainability performance. This assessment served as a basis for the formulation of self-commitments aimed at improving specific sustainability aspects within a 2-year timeframe.
The past and current activities include Brown Bag Lunch, beach clean-up on Koh Sak, Chonburi province, composting workshop, home-made bio extract cleaning product, Fun Run for GIZ staff, recycling paper for photocopying, green procurement etc.
The CSH benefits the country offices are following:
- It facilitates effective sustainability management by enabling country offices to collect key figures relating to indicators and existing sustainability concepts systematically and regularly and to evaluate this data.
- It helps to conserve resources, increase efficiency and reduce costs.
- It ensures that the efforts of the GIZ country offices in the field of corporate sustainability are recognised both within the company and externally.
- It increases competitiveness and helps to attract clients and partners by demonstrating responsible management practices.
- It helps the company to identify effective strategy options, providing a simple and efficient means of improving the way key sustainability measures are implemented.
- It encourages the participation of staff members by involving them in corporate sustainability processes.
- It creates opportunities for mutual learning by promoting the exchange and dissemination of good practices around the world.
Guidelines on Implementing the CSH (GIZ, 2016)
VDO
For this year’s Sustainability Contest, GIZ employees around the world submitted ideas from different categories. And the award goes to… in the Living Sustainably in Times of the Pandemic category, a team from Thailand for the initiative “Adapting to change. Change is Now”, which stood out in particular for its contribution to social sustainability and resilience in times of crisis.
Adapting to Change. Change is Now.
How can we live sustainability during a pandemic? Adapting to change is vital for our better life and better world. It takes time to create transformational change. Despite the ongoing challenging situations, our GIZ Thailand team has been learning and adapting to the new and different ways of living and our working routines. From the office to home, meeting online has become our common practice. We travel less and stay at home more. This is a way to help reduce our carbon footprint and save travel costs. Extra time has also been spent catching up with family, cooking, planting, composting food scraps and even installing small-sized solar panels at home. This is another way to leverage relationships in our family. We have our own ways to maintain a healthy work-life balance and ensure both our physical and mental wellbeing.
RESOURCES
Click here to read GIZ Thailand ‘s Green Procurement Guideline. With this guideline, we contribute to the company’s efforts in increasing its sustainability standards and greening its ecological footprint.
Please see the Green Guide to Bangkok brochure! This guide aims to inspire and give some ideas on how to live more sustainably in Bangkok! Enjoy browsing!
