The CSR Ukraine, an expert organization for sustainable development, has created the first Catalogue of Business Contribution to Ukraine’s Victory. Catalogue’s Partner Diia.Business. The Catalogue already includes more than 300 companies. You can find the Catalogue here: https://csr-ukraine.org/catalog-actions-of-companies-in-the-russian-ukrainian-war/
The Catalogue includes a list of companies in alphabetical order with the descriptions of their support cases. The Catalogue contains practices of 314 companies, including 227 national, 83 international, and 4 more cases representing business partnerships. Participating companies represent small and medium businesses, 124 companies, 189 big businesses and 1 business association. The top 6 industries represented in the CSR Case Catalogue are IT (87 companies), agriculture (37 companies), hotel and restaurant business (23 companies), retail (23 companies), industry and production (17 companies), and logistics (15 companies), 112 companies fall into the other economic sectors.
“It is just the first attempt to study what businesses in Ukraine have contributed to the future victory. Everyone works on their own front, and the list of responsible companies there is far from complete. The businesses continue to work to provide food and necessities to the people in the war zones, the army, the defence and the displaced, to provide humanitarian assistance and to support the army. We ask companies to add their activities into the Catalogue, be inspired by the practices of others, and unite. In unity there is strength and victory.” – said Maryna Saprykina, Head of the Center for CSR Ukraine, Sustainable Development and CSR Expert.
You can add a case or suggest changes to the existing one via the following link: https://bit.ly/3NVOTp9 or by sending an e-mail at smm@csr-ukraine.org.
The main areas of contribution of Ukrainian business during the war are financial assistance, humanitarian support, advance payment of taxes, participation in informational resistance, employees assistance, and IT support.
Financial aid: the total amount of financial assistance sent by more than 72 enterprises (out of 314 on the list) to support the army amounted almost 2 billion UAH (2 772 124 614 UAH) sent to the accounts of the NBU and related funds. The most popular foundation in Ukraine now is the Return Alive Charitable Foundation. In addition to the monetary support, another 107 companies purchased and donated aid to the army, donated cars and equipment, and created their funds to raise funds. There are also cases when companies send a part or all of their profits of the day / month to the accounts of military assistance. In total, at least 177 companies (more than half of those on the list) has sent their aid to the Armed Forces.
Humanitarian aid: over 3 billion (3 452 493 000 UAH) was transferred to humanitarian aid. Assistance with food supplies from companies was more than 200 million UAH (201 600 000 UAH), but this was the amount self-indicated by the companies. In fact, this sum must be several times higher than indicated. A total of 136 enterprises donated food supplies to the Armed Forces, Territorial Defence, hospitals, and communities. Also, 17 companies helped with logistics and fundraising, and another 15 have organized the evacuation. More than 60 000 litres of fuel were transferred from gas stations and enterprises to the army and hospitals (ambulances). 19 enterprises, including the pharmaceutical business, pharmacies, clinics, transferred over 70 million UAH (71 300 000 UAH) to the Armed Forces, hospitals and the population living amid the war conflict areas.
Prepayment of taxes: Companies pay advance amounts calculated based on the same period of last year. Seventeen companies paid taxes in advance, 3 billion UAH (3 666 290 000 UAH). Most of them are IT (8 companies), agribusiness (2 companies), banks (3 banks), manufacturing (2 companies), insurance (1 company), and retail (1 company) companies. Only a third of international companies (30 out of 91 lists) mentioned financial assistance to the Armed Forces and the Ukrainian population.
Informational resistance has become another war front for Ukrainians. The companies are working hard to spread the truth about Russia’s war in Ukraine worldwide by launching targeted ad via social networks, providing access to the news, the Internet, and TV in bomb shelters. Informational support was provided to Ukrainians by 67 companies, mainly IT and digital companies and agencies. The assistance included providing access to news and TV channels and developing non-standard programs, locating Russian troops, exposing companies with ties to the Russian and Belarusian markets, etc.
Caring for employees: companies organized the relocation of employees to Western Ukraine and abroad, opened new offices, and even opened new vacancies for Ukrainians. The companies also offered remote work in offices in more or less safe areas. Businesses tried to keep jobs and salaries and provided material assistance. The Catalogue presents 21 cases of companies that have publicly announced their employees’ support schemes. Aid was mainly related to financial help, relocation, psychological support, and assistance to families and implemented programs for employees’ children. The Catalogue also contains 17 cases of support and assistance of banking and financial companies to their clients, such as reduction of interest rates, the provision of free services, and the introduction of new services.
IT support: the Catalogue presents 18 cases of providing free access to services, books, apps, giving access to existing apps as well as creating new ones topical for Ukrainians as of now. Popular apps are the following, air alert notifier, job search, volunteering, farming assistance related. The creation of national roaming by Ukrainian operators for uninterrupted communication of the population is another big thing.
In the context of international support, the withdrawal of international and domestic businesses from the Russian market remains fundamentally important. It is gratifying that 46 international and Ukrainian companies have stopped cooperating with Russia and Belarus and their clients; some companies have closed offices in these countries. It is also common for businesses to boycott goods of Russian origin or international companies that continue to operate in Russia.
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CSR Ukraine is an expert organization in Ukraine, uniting more than 40 large companies, together with which it has been promoting the principles of sustainable business and social responsibility for ten years, implementing its own social projects, providing consultations, seminars and trainings on CSR issues and reports for both private companies and public authorities. It is a national partner of CSR Europe (Brussels, Belgium) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (Geneva, Switzerland). www.csr-ukraine.org
