Corporate Social Responsibility In Israel

Israel's Minister of Strategic Affairs & Public Diplomacy, Gilad Erdan paid tribute to Israel's world-renowned sustainable innovation at this week’s first-ever Israeli Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Experience Conference hosted by Maala, the country’s CSR standards organization.

“Today, nearly 90 percent of our waste water is recycled,” Minister Erdan stated. “That's around four times higher than any other country in the world. It is a remarkable achievement and this benefits not only Israel. Israeli companies are helping save water around the world, from Africa to California to India.”

Israeli CSR has always focused on domestic needs first, which is a big difference from the international CSR community that focuses on global issues, such as climate change.

Maala, the non-profit CSR standards-setting organization in Israel, was founded in 1998 with the goal of promoting corporate social and environmental responsibility. Today, the organization serves the needs of some 110 members, comprised of Israel’s large and mid-size companies, committed to excellence in corporate citizenship.

Since 2003, Maala has produced the annual Maala Index, which ranks publicly-traded, as well as privately-held Israeli companies, based on CSR criteria. The annual Maala CSR Index, an assessment tool benchmarking Israeli companies on their corporate social responsibility performance, is based on 98 voluntarily participating companies. This includes well-known companies like Teva, Unilever Israel, Strauss Group, Siemens Israel, Microsoft Israel, Intel Israel, El Al, and LivePerson. These 75 large companies and 23 small to mid-size companies together comprise 310,000 employees, and annual sales of $94B, representing approximately one-third of Israel’s GDP.

The Index leaders in various economic sectors are announced each year at the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange in the presence of Israel’s business, financial, and CSR leadership.

Source: Water Online