ENGRO Chemical Pakistan Ltd., is the premier fertilizer manufacturing and marketing company of Pakistan that has also ventured into chemicals, foods and energy sector. Being a highly profitable company, its involvement in the socially responsible activities is also quite significant. Social Bridges recently conducted an interview with the company’s resident manager at Islamabad, Mr. Nauman Shaikh, to know more about the company and its social values.

Social Bridges: How would you define CSR and what’s ENGRO’s vision of CSR?

Nauman: CSR in my opinion is linked with triple bottom line spectrum. In recent past, companies’ annual reports mentioned just one bottom line; profits. Now the things are changing. The thinking and philosophy of ENGRO complies with the global guidelines and initiatives. We are a signatory of UN Global Compact and have based our CSR program on its 10 principles. Our CEO says,

My vision for ENGRO is to see consistent focus on objectives and investment in a sustainable future, as the way forward.

Sustainability comes with everything. If your stakeholders are happy with you, if you are equal opportunity employer and if you are not polluting the environment then you are a sustainable company.

Social Bridges: What about the environmental footprint? I went through CSR reports as well as annual reports and some of your environmental targets especially those related to emissions were not met. Why?

Nauman: We have accepted in our reports that we have failed to achieve those targets while others don’t even care to mention that; infact they hide such facts. We actually set very high standards for ourselves. Each year we set our targets quite higher than the previous year. So what I can say is that we strive our best to reach those benchmarks and many a times we do achieve these targets. Let me give you another example. If you happen to visit any fertilizer company, you can smell Ammonia and other emissions from miles away as they don’t care about the environment. However, if you visit our plant, you would be surprised that there would be no such smell of emissions. That’s because we have spent millions of dollars in ensuring environmental compliance.

Social Bridges: So how would you rate your company in social efforts as compared to the other ones?

Nauman: As far as environment is concerned, we are certainly the best in Pakistan. The reason for this is that we don’t work to come up with Pakistani standards. We always eye the international benchmarks. We comply with the DuPont environmental standards. We have also got many local and international CSR awards. As far as overall CSR efforts are concerned, I will not draw any comparisons as we need an impartial third party to do that.

Social Bridges: The social spending of a company should be proportionate to its pretax earnings. What are the ratios at ENGRO?

Nauman: We are spending a significant amount of our pretax profits on social causes. During fiscal 2006, we spent around 1% of our pretax revenues on social projects.

Social Bridges: Your CSR activities are concentrated in the area of your production which is commendable by international standards but what about branching out? ENGRO can do a lot as it’s a big company.

Nauman: We have done interventions in all areas of Pakistan like south and central Punjab. We are sponsoring the efforts of LRBT and Aga Khan Hospital, among others. We also have launched Project HOPE where patients from rural areas can interact with physicians via teleconferencing. We contributed a lot during the 2005 earthquake. We rebuilt an entire village in that region besides taking part in the relief drive. Still I would say that as our production is based in northern Sindh so that area remains our focus of activities. You also have to keep in mind that Northern Sindh is one of the most deprived area of Pakistan.

Social Bridges: How do you involve your employees in CSR activities?

Nauman: ENGRO employees are greatly involved in our social activities. During the 2005 earthquake, many of our employees volunteered for the relief and rehabilitation efforts. They participated in the construction of 100 houses at Battal (an earthquake affected area) although we had donated the money to TCF for that but we wanted on the ground supervision. Our employees also take part in the regular community activities organized by the company. Let me tell you an interesting fact. Our employees, or their wives to be more precise, started a school in 1998 at Daharki for the children of our domestic helpers as there were no educational facilities for them at the time. The school was set up under the aegis of Sahara Welfare Society which is run by our employees. Initially, our employees and their spouses volunteered as teachers and generated funds by themselves. Later on, the company bought a piece of land and a proper school was established. Still the majority of school funds are met with the donations from our employees. Sahara Welfare Society is also involved in other community projects.

Social Bridges: If you can tell us about your future projects?

Nauman: We are launching a major project in technical education. This initiative is shared by Pakistan Industrial Development Corporation (PIDC) and Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) . We have established Pakistan Chemical and Energy Sector Development Company to further this initiative. Based in Daharki, the company will boast of a world class training institute where we will impart technical education to the locals. We would prefer locals as the standard of technical education in that area is extremely pathetic. That’s the reason why most of our workers come from other areas of Pakistan. We want to bridge this gap between the local population and our company. The institute will charge very nominal fees. While we will not guarantee employment to all those who will graduate from the institute but we will hire the best lot. The project will officially start in 2010. ENGRO is playing a crucial role in completing all the documentation for this company, generating funds, engaging the stakeholders and seeking donations from other companies. By the way, our company also has the highest monetary contribution in the project; around 30-40 million Rupees.

Social Bridges: Any other project?

Nauman: Right now we have diverted all our energies towards this project and we don’t have any other CSR projects in near future. This doesn’t mean that we’ll not contribute towards the society. We’ll keep doing that but will not involve in any major projects.

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