1. Introduction
The report introduces in analyzing the Corporate Social Responsibility of Great Eastern Holdings Limited. The Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors and their impacts have been mainly focussed for the company to efficiently carry out its business. In promoting initiatives and business practices, ESG principles have been incorporated for responsible insurance and sustainable investment so as to thrive the resilience strength into the business thereby serving the community in a better way. Educational empowerment, great living, and focusing on the disadvantaged groups have been critically analyzed while applying the rules of CSR. Further, the ethical issues have been discussed and recommendations have been laid down for further improvement in business deals.
2. Evaluation of corporate social responsibility report
In Singapore and Malaysia, a well-established market brand and market leader in the Great Eastern. Promoting good health and provision of financial security is their mission in transforming great life and establishing meaningful relationships. They aim to become the leader as a financial provider of service in Asia while excellence is recognized. Just the provision of insurance solutions in the community is not enough role for the company (Othman, 2017). To build a sustainable future is the core commitment of the company as a responsible insurer that is guided by core philosophy and core values in providing things better. Past achievements marked in becoming the signatory of UNEP FI PSI, which incorporated the ESG principles into business practices and initiatives in promoting sustainable investment and responsible insurance in thriving to strengthen the resilience of business and to serve the community in a better way. Other than these, Great Eastern also prides itself of being a responsible and active corporate citizen supporting meaningful charitable and social causes thereby making a lasting and positive impact in operating the diverse communities.
CSR Ranking as of 2020
(Source: csrhub.com)
According to the latest report (2019) Great Eastern Holdings Limited’s CSR have been critically analyzed using a number of variables
- a) Living great: In Singapore, the company has strongly supported wellness and health and has sponsored a number of programs especially for women in assessing their levels of fitness, setting achievable goals for fitness, and encouraging them to track progress for the future. This has raised revenues through corporate donations and registrations which have been donated to the women’s health foundations. Hence giving back to the community is the strong belief of the organization. In Malaysia, the great run has attracted a huge number of fitness enthusiasts. For the underprivileged children, a series of wellness and health workshops covered the dodge ball, badminton, futsal events that were mentored and coached by experienced instructors and professional sportsmen. This led to gaining confidence among the children thereby promoting character development. Public awareness has also been raised for cancer disease. A huge amount has been contributed to raising the standards of residents through the installation of water filtration systems and solar panels using various programs. In Indonesia, a blood donative drive was conducted that attracted sixty staff. Another three drives for blood donation attracted more than two hundred donors that included financial representatives, staff, customers as well as general public (www.unepfi.org, 2020).
If the above issues are analyzed via Vargas-Hernandez and Cruz’s (2016) ways then it could be seen that there has been a positive response towards the efforts of social responsibility when they are driven by strategies and values. However there exists a negative response when motivation is driven by the interests of the affected and selfishness but likely the organization does not have to pose such issues as the programs whole-heartedly engage one another (Vargas-Hernandez and Cruz, 2016).
- b) Helping the Disadvantaged: in Singapore, elderly beneficiaries were hosted in spreading some festive cheers for a day’s fun with their children and staff volunteers. A popular hit was with the prosperity draw in the Chinese New Year that raised Dollar forty thousand through selling tickets and to has been further funded. For children with special needs, the financial representatives of the company raised Dollar fifty-four thousand in supporting the community chest.
In Malaysia, as a part of the children’s care program, a workshop on paper cutting was held for thousand of underprivileged children. This led to the enrichment of the creative skills within them in making any kind of kits. Some cookie baking workshops were also conducted for underprivileged children between 10 to 17 years. distribution of school items supplies was done as a part of Christmas and Diwali celebrations from various homes, medical supplies funds were raised in partnering with Hospis Malaysia in aiding the palliative patients (www.greateasternlife.com, 2020.). The elderly homes were visited where repainting of their homes, interactions and donations in form of necessities and cash were made. ‘My Salam’ awareness was raised for protecting the Malaysians with lower income. Same facilities were made available in Indonesia to by hosting dinner and breakfast facilities for orphans thereby improving their quality of life. So meeting the needs were done through fundraising activities from cash donations and staff.
According to YEL García and AMR Jiménez (2017), it has been predicted from the above analysis that CSR stands important for the organization’s staff. There exist no constraints for price or revenue criteria. The creation of wealth and equitable distribution has been checked for social objectives (García and Jiménez, 2017).
3)Educational empowerment: in Malaysia and Indonesia, educational workshops have been held for underprivileged children. Exam techniques and tips provided them with materials for studying such that they excel in public exams. Cash awards were organized for the A-grade candidates. Scholarships were proposed for the local undergraduate candidates to pursue their education at Malaysian universities. With local finance Equipment Company, Great Eastern participated in a joint CSR program for supporting the educational needs. For women, a workshop for skill training was organized. Families were involved in farming projects so as to reinvest their profits for growing crops and harvesting in the future(www.unepfi.org, 2020).
From the above analysis, Huda et al. (2018) perceptions suggest that decisions to help the underprivileged sections have helped instead of causing harm to others. Corporate responsibility has been attempted to build besides sustainability engagement incorporation that could be fostered in demonstrating the experiential transformative learning with extensive reconfiguration and evaluation of existing programs. The learning experiences have been focused while putting efforts in the community engagement that have been applied in strengthening performances actually in encompassing the awareness-raising ability about the environmental issues (Huda et al., 2018).
3. Evaluation of ethical issues
The central corporate culture of Great Eastern Holdings Limited is fair dealings. The best possible services are provided fully and is committed to providing them in a transparent, fair, and professional manner.
The company generally works towards generating the principles of risk culture and Human Capital behavior processes and frameworks. The Governance committee at the management level is marked with stronger risk promotion awareness and ownership. The key risks are regularly self-assessed and the business operations are evaluated and identified in ensuring the effectiveness and adequacy of internal controls (sginvestors.io, 2020). Some of the business ethics that the company has been following for years are:
a)Privacy of Customers: the great importance lies in respecting and protecting customer privacy and data. Comprehensive policies are placed along with initiatives that continued to get updated and reviewed.
b)Combating Financial crime: for financial crime, there exists zero tolerance. Strong oversight, leadership and governance of the senior managers and board of directors ensure relevant and appropriate anti-financial initiatives and policies of crimes that are implemented (markets.ft.com, 2020).
c)Environment: the community is trying to save from the adverse conditions of the collective business community and further considerations for environmental ethics have been incorporated. The carbon footprint has been tried to be minimized from the direct impact. The use of rational natural resources has been aimed by the company towards conservation of the environment leading to less emissions and waste. The future generation’s well-being would then be safeguarded besides reducing the long-term operating costs.
d)Green Buildings: as part of the change in climate, investments have been incorporated in the right infrastructure. On prevailing standards, certified energy-based efficient are the buildings. Facilities for energy efficiencies are provided to tenants and employees.
e)Cyber security: there have been continuing processes of investments with their shareholders and process have been generated in improving resilience to raising the cyber risk. The cyber security defense’s important part is the rise in risk awareness. Vigilance and staff awareness have been measured and reinforced on cyber threats through regular e-learning, e-mail broadcasting, videos, and social engineering exercises. Periodically independent experts are also engaged in recognizing the threats that arrive newly from outside in assessing the company’s advice and cyber security in measuring the mitigations for external cyber threats that businesses might get impacted.
Responsible Investment
The company has been able to bring about positive changes in the industry due to its unique position as the most established insurance company. The community and environment has been driven by investing funds responsibly thereby delivering long-term sustainable value for all the stakeholders (Palliam, 2018).
Over the last year, Great Eastern Holdings shareholders posed a downsized risk as there had been a decline in share price by about fifteen percent. By buying an index fund, it is easy to match the overall return of the market. Both better and worse can happen while buying an individual stock at the same time. However, the market return was poorly 8% and stocks over three years were gradually up and the past month’s recorded fall in share price. However, according to the efficient market hypothesis, investors are not all time rational and markets sometimes are dynamic systems. In that case, the company has an EPS fall of 18% compared to the 15% fall in price that wasn’t bad. Hence, the investors were satisfied that it wasn’t a difficult situation despite the weak falling of share profits. The Total Shareholder’s Return also dropped last year but that too was not as low as the share price return. Moreover, there have been a total gain of eight percent against the total loss of thirteen percent and a tough year was faced by the investors. The fundamental metrics of business had no improvements and there have been dropping of share prices of stocks of goods sometimes. Over the year the longer-term investors contributed 0.5% and weren’t that upset (markets.ft.com, 2020).
4. Recommendations
An opportunity could be the recent sell-off such that for signs checking the fundamental data could be signs for growth trend in the long-term. In matters of ESG, the best practices might be promoted through economic influence and power as risk managers and institutional investors. Decision-making and strategic formulations for funding and spreading awareness have incorporated the ESG principles. In investment decision-making and analysis, investment issues may incorporate governance. Besides the simple exclusion, it’s much more holistic as it might provide the promoting the opportunity for sustainable and responsible practices of business that would bring about a positive change in the behavior of the corporate by engaging investors actively.
5. Conclusion
It can be concluded that Great Eastern Holdings Limited emphasizes decision making social, environmental, and governance issues that are important for the insurance business. The CSR issues have been aptly laid down by the executive and Board of management levels. Towards the efforts of social responsibility, there have been positive responses. While discussing the ethics, the material issues have been determined by the key engagement of the stakeholders that gives stakeholders insights about the company. Hence the response to clients is fair, quick, transparent, and sensitive at all times and claims sure processes that are explained clearly and understood.
Reference
García, YEL and Jiménez, AMR, 2017. Corporate social responsibility as a competitive product positioning strategy: consumer perception. NOVUM , (7), pp. 9-34.
Huda, M., Mulyadi, D., Hananto, A.L., Muhamad, N.H.N., Teh, K.S.M. and Don, A.G., 2018. Empowering corporate social responsibility (CSR): insights from service-learning. Social Responsibility Journal.
markets.ft.com, 2020. Great Eastern Holdings Ltd, G07:SES Profile – FT.Com. [online] Markets.ft.com. Available at: <https://markets.ft.com/data/equities/tearsheet/profile?s=G07:SES> [Accessed 9 November 2020].
Othman, M.B., 2017. Development and shari’ah issues of the takaful industry in Malaysia–effects of the regulatory framework on the implementation and growth. Journal of Finance and Banking Review, 2(1), pp.38-43.
Pulliam, R., 2018. Legal and Ethical Issues In Business.
sginvestors.io, 2020. Great Eastern Holdings Company Announcements (SGX:G07) | SG Investors.Io. [online] Sginvestors.io. Available at: <https://sginvestors.io/sgx/stock/g07-great-eastern/company-announcement> [Accessed 9 November 2020].
Vargas-Hernandez, J.G. and Cruz, C.G.M., 2016. Journal of Socialomics.
www.greateasternlife.com, 2020. [online] Great Eastern, Singapore. Available at: <https://www.greateasternlife.com/sg/en/about-us/investor-relations/annual-reports.html> [Accessed 9 November 2020].
www.unepfi.org, 2020. [online] Unepfi.org. Available at: <http://www.unepfi.org/psi/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/UN-PSI.2019-Disclosure.Final_.pdf> [Accessed 9 November 2020].
