The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce recently held a webinar to brief prospective applicants for the Best Corporate Citizen Sustainability (BCCS) Awards 2022. Held this year for the nineteenth consecutive year, the BCCS Awards, which champion corporate sustainability in an increasingly environmentally vulnerable world, are one of the most anticipated events on the corporate calendar.

Against a backdrop of a challenging year in terms of the global and national socio-economic environment, the Awards seek to highlight proactive initiatives that sought to ensure sustainable and resilient practices.

‘The purpose of these Awards is to give due recognition to the concept of corporate sustainability in Sri Lanka, whilst encouraging corporates to adopt the best sustainability practices in their business strategies. Considering the COVID-19 pandemic and the current socio- economic crisis that had a significant impact on business operations in 2021/22, this year the Chamber has adopted new and enhanced evaluation criteria, whilst also introducing Awards that celebrate sustainable resilience’, Alikie Perera, Deputy Secretary General and Financial Controller of the Ceylon Chamber stated, delivering the welcome preliminaries on behalf of the Ceylon Chamber.

The briefing was led by the Chairman of the Panel of Evaluators and a veteran in the field of sustainability, Dr. Ananda Mallawatantri, Country Representative (Sri Lanka) - International Union for Conservation of Nature. Stressing the urgency in mainstreaming sustainable Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) practices in core business processes and corporate strategies, Dr. Mallawatantri elaborated on ESG practices including circularity, net-zero approaches, life- cycle analysis, science-based targets, etc. as important pillars of sustainable strategies.

The introduction of a ‘Planning and Adoption of Resilient Practices for Covid-19 and Emerging Country Context’ award this year, will highlight corporates that effectively identified, assessed, and implemented Covid-19 resilient practices, as well as practices to ensure sustainability and stability in the context of emerging political, economic and social disruption.

Dr. Chandana Siriwardana, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Engineering -  University of Moratuwa, who will lead the panel of evaluators for the  Best Projects Sustainability Awards, briefed participants on the Best Projects Sustainability Awards application. These awards highlight the efforts of the private and public sectors to develop and implement individual projects that promote a specific aspect one or more aspects of sustainability, and which demonstrate a contribution to the well-being of the people or the planet.

Applications for the BCCS Awards are now open, with the application forms, brochures and other relevant documents accessible at www.chamber.lk  For further information, please call Oshadhi on 0115588851 / oshadhi@chamber.lk or Whitney on 0115588850 / hr@chamber.lk