John Keells Group: CSR Programs and Community Development

This report provides a detailed overview of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives undertaken by the John Keells Group in Sri Lanka. It begins with an introduction to the company's commitment to community development and sustainable growth, highlighting its alignment with the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. The report then explores the importance of CSR for modern businesses, emphasizing its role in attracting and retaining employees, building a positive reputation, and contributing to societal development. A significant portion of the report is dedicated to examining the various CSR programs implemented by John Keells Group, including initiatives in education, health, environmental protection, and disaster relief. These programs include the English Language Scholarship Programme, John Keells Praja Shakti school program, vision care, HIV awareness, and disaster relief efforts like the Tsunami and Meethotamulla support. The report also discusses the company's efforts in transportation and its contributions to community development through various partnerships and projects. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of CSR in fostering transparency, honesty, and respect for customers and stakeholders, reinforcing John Keells Group's commitment to social responsibility in Sri Lanka.

qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqw
ertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwert
yuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyui
opasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiop
asdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasd
fghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfgh
jklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjkl
zxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxc
vbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvb
nmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm
qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqw
ertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwert
yuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyui
opasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiop
asdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasd
fghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfgh
jklzxcvbnmrtyuiopasdfghjklzxcv
Sustainable operations

Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................2
Importance of CSR................................................................................................................................2
Corporate Social responsibility of John keels group Sri Lanka.............................................................3
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................6
References.............................................................................................................................................7

Introduction
John Keells considers that community development is significant to bring the
sustainable growth and providing access to environmental, economic, social as well as basic
human right of people. The CSR initiatives of John Keells are directly connected to the 5Ps
of the sustainable development objectives named partnerships, people, planet, peace and
prosperity. John Keells also awarded at “Sri Lanka CSR leadership Awards” in the year 2018
for community development. John Keells has started its operation in the year 1870 and
become the Sri Lanka biggest Conglomerate. The CSR activities of John Keells mainly give
emphasis on economic, social as well as environmental level. John Keells is the Sri Lankan
biggest listed company in the “Colombo Stock Exchange” by having operations in different
industries including Leisure, Retail, Financial Services and Plantation Services,
Transportation, Consumer Foods & Property, as well as IT.
Importance of CSR
In the recent time, companies are increasingly giving emphasis on protecting the
environment, right of its employees, attempting to prevent poverty on national, global as well
as local level. Companies tend to embrace the socially responsible policies in order to go long
way toward retaining and attracting the customers. It is true that social oriented companies
mostly attract the employees who really want to make the difference in the world besides
only taking the salary or pay from the company. In big companies, collective employee
efforts helps in achieving significant results that further helps in increasing the morale of
employees and boosts productivity. In order to implement the social responsibility of
business in effective manner, companies are required to implement the ethical practices
effectively to ensure the overall development of the society. Organisations including John
Keells tends to get different benefits by ensuing a better and good corporate social
responsibility (De Zylva, 2017). It helps the company in building a good reputation as a
responsible business. By reducing the wastage on resource, it can also help the environment.
at the same time, it can save money. Being a responsible CSR business, it makes easier to
recruit the talented and skilled employees. It also becomes easy to retain the current
employees who are working in the organisation (Philips, 2017).

Corporate Social responsibility of John Kelles Group Sri Lanka
Corporate social responsibility is said to be the self-regulation carried out by the
organisation in order to improve its business operation. CSR tends to present the moral
standards that are undertaken by company for maintaining the good relations in the society.
Therefore, it is said to be the approaches that are implemented by the contemporary business
corporations for seeking the sustainable growth. It also brings the development in the
business through delivery of economic, environmental and social benefits to different
stakeholders.
By considering the corporate social responsibility of John Kelles Group , it has found
that it has effectively implemented the CSR strategies. John Keeles effectively works for the
communities such as customers and team members in order to develop good relationship. It
also provides training to its customers as well as suppliers for saving the environment.
John Keells Group has also taken several CSR programmes for the environment
protection. When Sri Lanka woke up with the pollution crisis in 2017, the high consumption
of pollution has been ignored. Due to this, John Keells Group came up with the social
entrepreneurship initiative for reducing the plastic pollution in Sri Lanka. The first initiative
under this project has been taken out in 2017. It gave emphasis on encouraging customers to
reduce the use of plastic by disposing their plastic waste responsibly. In this regard, John
Keells has designed the plastic cycle bins that are placed at different locations in pilot zone
including the Union Place outlets and Keells Super. This initiative was launched by doing
partnership with Keells Super and Elephant House along with the SLRC (Sri Lanka
Recyclers Association) who committed to recycle the plastic collected in the bins. Besides
this, the plastic Cycle was also invited by the Marine Environmental Authority for
participating at the National Coastal Clean Up programme. The project is also seeking to
encourage the Sri Lanka people to join the Keells family in taking the “PlasticCycle Pledge.”
In this way, John Keells Group is finding the sustainable solution to the problem (Jayathilaka
& De Silva, 2018).
In July 2019 also, Coles has formed the alliance with the Australian Worker Union,
Transport Worker Union, Allied and Distributive Employees for addressing the workers risk
and exploitation to safety in the fresh food supply chain. Afterwards, it also developed the
“Coles Ethical Retail Supply Chain Accord” in November 2019. The objective behind this is
to protect the workers right in supply chain. This accord also involve the representive of

every organisation for discussing about the training, education, workers complaints, research
investment on the economic and social benefit of ethical sourcing. Hence, it can be stated that
a good CSR initiatives taken by the organisation prove to be effective in maintaining the
good reputation in the market.
John Keells Group works on several parameters in Sri Lanka. The first CSR program
works in the education area. It believes that education is the most significant aspect in an
enlightened and civilized society. In this regard, it started providing education opportunities
to the disadvantage communities by taking high priority on the corporate responsibility. John
Keells Foundation is known to be the CSR entity of the John Keells Holding, Sri Lanka
Company which is also country’s biggest listed corporation in the “Colombo Stock Exchange
overrating around 70 companies. JKH also provides employment to around 13,000
individuals and has been hierarchical as the Sri Lanka most reputed and well known entity.
JKH has the vision to empower the nation for tomorrow in better way. “English Language
Scholarship Programme” has been launched in 2004. The aim of this programme is to
enhance the English skills of the youth and school children from the socially disadvantage
people. This initiative is improving the communicative and speaking skills in the English
throughout Sri Lanka. “John Keells Praja Shakti school” program has the objective to bring
improvement in overall structure and educational’ skills and facilities of the students of
disadvantaged government schools. This initiative has the aim to create a conductive
environment for learning as well as enhancing the quality of education in disadvantage
schools. Under this program, it also includes the facility and infrastructure development that
includes renovation, construction as well as maintenance of sanitation and water, home/
computer labs as well as computer equipment and fittings. It is the duty of each business
person to undertake such policies as well as follow some ethical action that work in the
favour of fulfilling the objectives of the organisation. According to the integration
perspective, social responsibility of every business includes the legal, social, discretionary as
well as ethical expectation (Keells, 2017).
The next CSR programs of John Keells Group work in the health sector. It believes
that healthy society proves to be the productive one. The foundation in this regard continues
its long term emphasis on the three areas of health named vision care, HIV awareness, and
working against violence with the help of education. The objective of Vision Project is to
provide vision related healthcare services to the deserving people across Sri Lanka. It enables
them in regain their vision and thereby their economic and social independence. It also

provides spectacles to the beneficiaries. Project Wave work against the violence through
education. Project Wave is a long term initiative that combat the child abuse and gender
violence through awareness and education. Under this, it has launched the staff focused
campaign with tagline “zero tolerance” with the aim of driving personal commitment in
building a violence free society. Under the second phase, it has addressed the sexual
harassment in the workplace. Under this, awareness sessions regarding violence and cyber
exploitation are also taken by focusing on the parents. In Bar association of Sri Lanka, it has
conducted the general awareness session for the police officers and lawyers (Darnall,
Henriques and Sadorsky, 2010).
John Keells Group also reach out to the communities through the dialogue with its
staff volunteerism and stakeholders by taking several initiatives. Rural BPO project is the
first project started under livelihood development. This initiative has facilitated the John
Keells in outsourcing few of its accounting functions by oirvidi8ng job opportunities to
village youth. Job is provided by offering training to those people. The objective behind this
initiative is to create the sustainable employment opportunities for the talented youth in rural
area. It is first BPO in Sri Lanka. Not only this, John Keells also indulge itself in the
maintenance of slave island railway station. Since 2002, it is supporting the maintenance and
renovation of the station. It also include the maintenance of rail reservation invaliding
backfilling, turfing as well as plating of the area. Recently, John Keells has also renewed its
16 year private public partnership with the Sri Lanka for maintenance and refurbishment of
the Kompannavidiya Railway station. Renew agreement was signed on July 2019 between
the Sri Lanka railways general manager and the company. In order to enable the station to be
user friendly and clean for the several commuters, John Keells fund daily maintenance
charges for the station. Project work includes all routine maintenance and repair charges of
the service area and building. In addition to this, refurbishment of the ceiling at entrance is
also implemented and sponsored by the John Keells under the guidance of Sri Lanka (LBO,
2015).
John Keells also contribute in the transportation sector. The idea of its transportation
sector is to be the leading provider of the transportation services, solution and infrastructure.
Under this, it offers the array of transportation as well as related services through the
diversified business portfolio in some of the selected markets. These operations tend to
include the marine bunklering business, associations with some of the leading logistics,
shipping as well as air transportation in Sri Lanka. John Keells Group therefore simply

believes in using the several goals in order to fulfil the social obligations and demand in the
decisions of the company. Similar to this model, company also has different or varied goals
besides providing the value to its shareholder without giving major emphasis to the financial
gain. However, it has achieved several benefits by following CSR programmes for the people
of Sri Lanka. This initiative has the aim to create a conductive environment for learning as
well as enhancing the quality of services in different areas of Sri Lanka. It has also helped
the several people in numerous ways by undertaking the multiple goal models. It is being
stated that the model of varied objectives or goals prove to be effective only when company
have the finest team to handle varied task in some period of time (Windell, 2016).
In addition to the above two programmes, John Keells has also undertaken the AIDS
and HIV Awareness Campaign. Combating the spread of AIDS and HIV to ensure that their
status in Sri Lanka remain very low. Disaster Relief is also one such CSR program of John
Keells. Under this, John Keells has also taken its pledge to support the relief support at the
Meethotamulla following the spillage of garbage dump that has displaced the various
families. John Keels also contributes to the Tsunami relief. For example: when Tsunami
disaster occurs in Sri Lanka, John Keells come forward to offer the assistance to thousands of
people. It has also done donations to the people who affected by Tsunami disaster (Bruhn and
Zimmermann, 2017).
Conclusion
In the limelight of above discussion, social responsible companies give their emphasis
on the CSR responsibilities toward the society and individual. It includes transparency,
honesty, as well as respecting the privacy of customers. In Sri Lanka, John Keells also work
toward several obligations of society such as education, working in disaster management as
well as empowerment. John Keells has successfully work toward the CSR vision of
empowering the country for better tomorrow. Not only has this, John Keells Group also
marketed its product ethically and responsibly. John Keells has effectively helped the Sri
Lanka economy to boost in several fields of education as well as health. In this way, it can be
simply concluded that that John Keells Group is effectively working across various parts of
the world including Sri Lanka. The significant investment sustainability and corporate
responsibility issues has helped the company to make the good approach toward CSR. By
making the different initiatives and programmes related to CSR, it is effectively able to run
its business across the world.

References
Andriof, J. and Waddock, S. (2017). Unfolding stakeholder engagement. In Unfolding
stakeholder thinking (pp. 19-42). United Kingdom: Routledge.
Bruhn, M. and Zimmermann, A. (2017). Integrated CSR communications. In Handbook of
Integrated CSR Communication (pp. 3-21). Springer, Cham.
Darnall, N., Henriques, I. and Sadorsky, P. (2010). Adopting proactive environmental
strategy: The influence of stakeholders and firm size. Journal of management
studies, 47(6), pp.1072-1094.
De Zylva, A. (2017). The Paris Agreement on Climate Change and Sri Lanka. Routledge:
United Kingdom.
Dharmaratne, G. D. S. R., & Rathnayaka, R. M. C. L. K. (2016). A Study on the Impact of
Corporate Social Responsibility on Organizations Level of Profitability. Routledge:
United Kingdom.
Jayathilaka, K. G. S. A., & De Silva, J. H. R. (2018). Impact of Green Marketing on
Consumer Attitudes and Consumer Purchase Intention in Sri Lanka. Routledge:
United Kingdom.
Keells. (2017). Sustainability, CSR & Social Entrepreneurship. Available at
https://www.keells.com/sustainability-and-csr-social-entrepreneurship
LBO. (2015). John Keells Hotels says social media and online marketing will boost brand
presence. Available at: https://www.lankabusinessonline.com/john-keells-hotels-says-
social-media-and-online-marketing-will-help-boost-brand-presence/
Munasinghe, M.A.T.K. and Malkumari, A.P., 2012. Corporate social responsibility in small
and medium enterprises (SME) in Sri Lanka. Journal of Emerging Trends in
Economics and Management Sciences, 3(2), p.168.
Philips, J. A. (2017). Digital Education Transforming Higher Education. Routledge: United
Kingdom.

Reavis, M.R., Tucci, J.E. and Pierre, G.S. (2017). Corporate Social Responsibility and
Millennials’ Stakeholder Approach. Journal of Leadership, Accountability and
Ethics, 14(4).
Windell, K. (2016). The commercialization of CSR: Consultants selling responsibility.
In Managing corporate social responsibility in action (pp. 47-66). Routledge.