The Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility & Sustainability (CSR) West Africa, a leading CSR and Sustainability advocacy organization in the West African subregion has announced opening of entries for this year’s National CSR and Sustainability Awards, christened the Ghana CSR & Sustainability Excellence Awards, GHACEA (10^th edition).

This year’s GHACEA will highlight sustainable projects and social interventions implemented by companies and individuals between January 2021 and June 2023. The Awards will be preceded by a National Sustainability Conference in June 2023.

According to Mr. John Kojo Williams, Co-Founder and Lead Project Manager for the Centre for CSR West Africa:

"We are aware that many companies are trying to adopt sustainable practices and embrace social responsibility. This is partly due to the CSR and Sustainability awareness creation efforts of the Centre for CSR West Africa.

In the past 12 years, we have developed Sustainability and CSR strategies for companies and organized many fora to help them understand CSR, demystify the misconceptions around it and commit to international best practices. In addition, we have created opportunities for companies to match-make their interventions, partner and collaborate for bigger, better and more lasting social interventions.

Therefore, it is imperative that we applaud companies that are social responsible, reward them and showcase their good practices, so that others can be inspired to emulate and do same or even better. This way, we inch closer to achieving some of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and society becomes better, when companies become more socially responsible.”

The GHACEA was launched in the year 2011, in collaboration with the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), Federation of Association of Ghanaian Exporters (FAGE) and the Ministry of Trade and Industry. For about 12 years, it has been creating critical awareness about the responsibility of companies to their stakeholders such as customers, government, media, regulatory agencies, staff, environment and to society at large.  It has been shining the light on international best practices implemented by companies and promoting organisational sustainability and the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Regarded as one of the most stringent Awards schemes in the subregion, (with a 13-member jury that is drawn from academia, regulatory agencies, government, civil society, international aid agencies, media and business associations), only socially-responsible companies which have verifiable evidence of the impact of their CSR and sustainability interventions on their beneficiaries and society, have managed to win the coveted Award.

Some of the past winners include: Plan International, MTN, Vodafone, Unilever, Nestle, Olam, Stanbic, Latex, MTN, Kosmos, Guinness, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Samba Foods, Prudential Life, Odebrecht Ghana, Huawei Technologies, Coconut Grove Hotel, KPMG, McDan Shipping, Wire weaving industries, Fan Milk Ghana, Melcom Group, All Pure Nature, New Crystal Hospital, Golden Sunbeam Schools, Mohinani Group, Interplast and some others.

The 2023 CSR & Sustainability Awards will cover the following three main cateogries: Corporate (covering more than 20 thematic Award areas), individuals (covering about 10 thematic Award areas of individual brilliance, commitments and efforts) and corporate COVID-19 social interventions.

Companies are encouraged to email the Centre for CSR West Africa via centreforcsr@outlook.com for detailed information on the categories, criteria and timelines for the Awards.  The Awards will also take place in other West African countries such as Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone.

The GHACEA will take place in September 2023 and companies are encouraged to submit their CSR projects and social interventions entries between March 15, 2023 and July 31, 2023. The entries could contain projects and CSR activities that were implemented between January 2021 and June 2023.

This year, the Centre for CSR West Africa, is also collaborating with a UK university to roll out a couple of CSR and sustainability-related short courses for individuals and managers.