Corporate social responsibility in mining industry

• Main Authors: Sylvie Gurská, Adriana Válová
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Mendel University Press 2013-01-01
• Series: Acta Universitatis Agriculturae et Silviculturae Mendelianae Brunensis
• Subjects: corporate social responsibility; mining industry; triple bottom line
• Online Access: https://acta.mendelu.cz/61/7/2163/

This paper focuses on the comparison of corporate social responsibility in mining industry. It compares specific territorial areas of two different countries – one of them country that could be called as semi-periphery or even core country and the second one a periphery country. The first one is Czech Republic (Northern Bohemia area) and the second one is Zambia (Copperbelt area). CSR activities in Copperbelt have played primarily an ameliorative role in the context of significant social disruption and uncertainty in the wake of privatization. Some experts say there are still important gaps between mining companies’ CSR activities, on the one hand, and accountability and fairness, on the other. The CSR concept is relatively new in the Czech Republic – but more and more discussed and interesting for many firms. The Czech company “Severočeské doly” was one of the finalists of the national round of the competition “The European Corporate (Social) Responsibility Award” in 2007. The aim of this paper is to find the opportunities the companies working in this industry use, and how the system of CSR is developed. It analysis the areas they concentrate on in their CSR activities and compares it with theoretical concept. The comparison is based on secondary data as well as on personal experience of visiting both of these areas and companies.