On April 28, the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) Excellence Awards program kicks off in Shanghai with the theme “Invest in Green Future”. The event, guided by the Shanghai Information Office, the Shanghai Commission of Commerce and the Shanghai Environmental Protection Bureau, is hosted by Shanghai Observer under Jiefang Daily, Shanghai Daily and Eastday.com. The Beijing-based SynTao Co Ltd is a co-organizer, while Jiefang Daily Innovation and Development Research Center, Shanghai Daily Multinational Companies Club, Shanghai Association of Foreign Investment and Shanghai Association of International Economic and Technological Cooperation give full support. The event incorporates case collection and selection as well as a summit on green innovation. The part of case collection and selection promotes the idea of “green development” proposed as a core principle in Shanghai’s 13th Five-Year (2016-20) Plan. The summit will be held in the end of July to deliver awards and lead discussions on corporate social responsibility.

This year marks the start of the 13th Five-Year (2016-20) Plan, which embraces the concept of an innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development. How to invest in a green future is of great importance for Shanghai, which pursues to become an innovation center in science and technology with global influence. Against this backdrop, the CSR Excellence Awards program is to offer good corporate examples to further drive Shanghai’s sustainable growth and to build up a consensus among the public to assist better international communication for Shanghai as an innovation-driven metropolis.

The CSR Excellence Awards program will not only take multinational companies as candidates, but also domestic firms that are under restructuring to seek global expansion. Cases from multinational companies, state-owned enterprises or private firms are all eligible for the competition to showcase Shanghai’s ambition and competitiveness in the pursuit of green future.

The three-month-long program will collect cases of corporate social responsibility and select those with Shanghai characteristics and fitting into China’s needs to be winners, providing samples to lead Shanghai’s green development.

The awards will be presented in three categories: Green Awards, Shared Value Awards and Responsibility Innovation Awards. Among them, Green Awards will be comprised with Annual Green Product/Service, Annual Green Supply Chain and Annual Green Operation; Shared Value Awards will be comprised with Annual Community Engagement, Annual Employee Care and Annual Cross-sector Collaboration; Responsibility Innovation Awards will be made up of Annual Responsibility Innovation and Overseas Responsibility Innovation.

Companies or their subsidies registered in Shanghai, including foreign-invested companies, state-owned enterprises and private firms with good practice in corporate social responsibility can apply to participate in the competition. They should have no bad record in the past three years, and any attempts to conceal the records will lead to disqualification and will be made public.

From now on, the CSR Excellence Awards has started case collection until May 27. Between May 30 and June 10, the organizers will give a preliminary review of the cases collected. Between June 13 and June 30, the pubic and participating enterprises can vote online to decide winners together with the opinions of a professional judge panel. The awards will be given at the “green innovation” summit in the end of July.