Corporate Responsibility Forum: Strategies for Competitiveness and Shared Value

Date:

June 15 - 17 , 2010

City:

Washington, DC

Organiser:

IFC

Contact Name:

Veronica Nyhan Jones, Arjun Bhalla

Email:

abhalla@ifc.org; vnyhanjones@ifc.org

Event Website:

IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, assembled over 200 private sector and civil society professionals to discuss ways companies can maximize the positive impact they have through community investments in developing countries.

Participants at the 2010 IFC Corporate Responsibility Forum, held June 15-17, agreed that as expectations for corporate involvement in addressing development challenges increase, the measure of success has shifted from amount of dollars spent to the degree of impact achieved. This calls for more sophisticated approaches and tools that can help companies apply greater rigor in the way they select sustainability investments and measure the value they create both for local communities and the business.

“We saw a need for clients to take a strategic approach and quantify the great work they are doing through their community investments,” said Rachel Kyte, IFC Vice President for Business Advisory Services. “This presents an opportunity for companies to transform the way community investment is approached and maximize the positive impact they are having on the ground.”

IFC also introduced participants to its Financial Valuation Tool, co-developed with Rio Tinto and Deloitte, which allows companies to measure the financial value of community investments at specific projects around the world. IFC clients Newmont Mining and Cairn India shared their experiences piloting the tool at their operations in Ghana and India.