Social Responsible Company of 2008

30 September 2008, Sofia

The awards in the first, held in Bulgaria, national competition for the most active company in the field of Corporate Social Responsibility, organized by the Pari newspaper, were handed on an official ceremony in Sheraton Sofia Hotel Balkan.
Partners of the prestigious competition are the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy, the association Partnership for Socially Responsible Business, Bulgarian Industrial Capital Association and United Nations Development Programme.

The auditor of the competition was Deloitte Bulgaria, an organization which is very experienced in holding such events in Western Europe.
“This competition is necessary for the Bulgarian business and the fact, that the Pari newspaper has proposed it as a partnership initiative of competent organizations, working in Bulgaria for the establishment of National CSR strategy, for me means a warranty of success”, the chairman of the jury Valentin Panayotov said.

The categories of the awards are:

Social responsibility towards employees
Loyalty towards partners and competitors
Clients Ethics
Participation in long-term socially responsible projects
Charity

The purpose of the competition

The purpose of the competition is to make popular the good practices in applying the concept and the principles of Corporate Social Responsibility of the companies in Bulgaria. The methodology of the competition is prepared by a team of experts in the field of CSR.
Claimants
From 250 companies, invited to take part in the competition, the challenge was accepted by more than 60 companies, which is very good as this is the first year, Petkan Iliev, a member of the jury said. The assessment was performed on the basis of a questionnaire, covering the topics „Attitude to employees”, „Competitors” and „Public”. “The benefit of these practices can be seen with the leading socially engaged companies in Europe”, Albena Petkova form Deloitte stated. The auditor company, monitoring the transparency of the competition and the association Partnership for Socially Responsible Business handed their special awards to Centromed and bTV. “The small number of public companies and companies of the small and medium business amongst the participating companies makes impression”, Valya Chilova from the association Partnership for Socially Responsible Business summarized. We hope that their interest in the next year competition will grow, she added.

The winners
On an awarding ceremony in Sheraton Hotel on 30th September 2008 evening totally 13 companies in five categories were nominated for the awards. 5 more companies in the categories Social Responsibility towards Employees, Loyalty towards Partners and Competitors, Clients Ethics, Participation in Long-Term Socially Responsible Projects and Charity.
Most nominations – in three of the categories – were received by ТNТ Bulgaria, and in the two of the categories – by Cosmo Mobile Bulgaria, Roca Bulgaria and Astra Zeneca.

The winners are:

First Investment bank in the category “Social responsibility towards employees”
Roca Bulgaria – “Clients Ethics”
ТNТ Bulgaria – “Loyalty towards partners and competitors,
Solvay Sodi – “Charity”,
Overgas – “Long-term socially responsible projects”.

CSR company of the year 2008 is М-Tel:

As a winner of the highest award, М-Tel is the company, that has proved to have the best practices and policies in the Social responsibility towards employees, Loyalty towards partners and competitors, Clients Ethics, Charity and Implementation in long-term socially responsible projects.