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CSR contest – Georgia’s responsible Business Awards Meliora

Corporate Social Responsability

CSR contest – Georgia’s responsible Business Awards Meliora 2018

In 2018 CSRDG has launched the annual CSR excellence contest - Georgia's Responsible Business Awards Meliora. The Contest aims to: promote and strengthen the CSR commitment among businesses; attract attention to excellent examples of CSR projects and motivate companies to adopt best practices; and finally to drive the change encouraging the system of corporate responsibility to go beyond philanthropy and donation.

Work on the concept and materials for the awards scheme started in January. The Contest concept and materials were elaborated in cooperation with two invited European consultants from “Business in the Community”, Prince Charles’s Business Network (UK) and Pontis Foundation (Slovakia), both having extensive experience of conducting similar contests in their countries respectively. 20 different international CSR contests have been analysed; the online survey of up to 50 companies operating in Georgia has been conducted to reveal needs, attitudes and preferences of the companies concerning the CSR contest – the results of this research were considered in planning and elaborating the contest materials.

The Contest comprised 11 categories (6 thematic categories, comprising all main areas of CSR - Environmental protection, ethical business operations, labour rights, community development, cross-sector partnership and CSR reporting; three special categories and main award – Grand Prix for large company and for SME – see: http://meliora.ge/en/categories/). Georgia's Responsible Business Awards are open to companies of any size from around the country – large, medium and small enterprises, registered in Georgia, which can nominate their programs, projects or initiatives implemented in 2017-2018. In each category separate awards could be conferred for small or medium-sized company in parallel to a large company in order to encourage SMEs and demonstrated that this is not just a big business but also a small and medium-sized enterprises, who could equally benefit environment and society through adoption of responsible business approach.

The special webpage in Georgian and English for the Contest has been created: www.meliora.ge All materials elaborated for the contest have been published at this webpage, including: Terms and conditions; Eligibility criteria; Description of the categories; Guide for the applicants; Entry forms; Evaluation criteria and scoring guides; Information about evaluation process and the Jury etc. Contest aimed to be as transparent as possible.

The CSRDG worked hard to attract partners and supporters for the contest, as a result contest had: 15 supporting organizations, among them leading business associations, embassies and international organization, government and parliament agencies (Ministry of Labour, Health and Social Affairs; Ministry of Economics and sustainable development; Tbilisi City Council; Parliament committee on Euro integration); 25 media partners and 7 sponsors – see: http://meliora.ge/en/partners-sponsors/ 

The information about the Contest was disseminated via various communication channels to reach out interested companies, in particular: CSRDG has posted the information on its Facebook page;  CSR newsletter has been sent to more then 200 stakeholders; all media partners have published the information about the contest, including TV and radio programs; all partners business association have informed their member companies; CENN has distributed information through its e-newsletter; Business information agency (BIA) has sent out information newletter to several thousand selected companies; CSR Club has informed it’s member companies etc.

Jury for the Contest has been formed from leading Georgian and international experts, including 16 Georgian and 10 international, high profile experts from UK, Slovakia, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Israel, USA. Specific panels, consisting from the thematic and CSR experts, independently judged each category.

After official announcement of the Contest, awards team has conducted 5 group consultations and up to 20 individual consultations to the interested companies about the Contest requirements and rules.

43 leading Georgian and international companies have entered the awards with 77 projects (among them 15 were SMEs). After the eligibility check (which has blocked two ineligible entries), all entries have been translated into English and forwarded to the Jury members. Seven panel meetings of the Jury for various categories and the oral presentation of the nominees for the Grand Prix have been held to reveal the winners.

The Awarding ceremony took place on December 13.  10 winners have been revealed (among them 3 were SMEs), see: http://meliora.ge/en/5596-2/

The catalogue encompassing summaries of all submitted projects has been developed, published, and distributed to the guests of the Awarding ceremony and other stakeholders (see online version on: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rpT2RhzT5ozzBTQZN3uQcJEOmP69VwHO/view?usp=sharing )

The contest was widely covered by media:

• TV coverage:  Information about CSR Awards Meliora 2018 was broadcast 18 times with a total duration of 2:12:35 hours by following medias:
• Radio coverage: Information about the CSR award was broadcast by radio 5 (five) times with 0:32:90 hour duration
• Online Media: Information about the CSR award was communicated 102 times