Corporate social responsibility or CSR has been a growing big issue in developing countries lately. When companies start to pay attention to their social responsibility, they are looking for ways to do good and creating unique competitiveness at the same time.

CSR Asia is an social enterprise setup to fill that particular gap. They are provider of information, training, research and consultancy services on sustainable business practices in Asia. We have met them in their Singapore office near China town. CSR Asia's Erin and Laura were telling us about how important the role of social enterprise really is and how exciting it is to take on social enterprise's challenges.

Erin Lyon

Laura Crow

For them, social enterprise means a business that focuses on social objective rather than maximizing share holder values. CSR Asia is growing from their first office in Hong Kong to Singapore and might be openning the new office in Thailand. They are working with companies and institutions everywhere from Singaporean corporations to the stock exchange of Malaysia. They also mentioned that there are growing opportunities to match CSR arms of various businesses with social enterprises with strategic fit. This is an area where they might be able to help contribute to the field of social entrepreneurship in Asia.

On the personal level, Erin & Laura believe that business can do good in a very effective manner and it is their mission to help these companies in doing so. They are quite young themselves compare to other people we have met in Singapore, their central role in such exciting social enterprise is really inspiring in making a strong case that young ladies can make unique impact at a global level.

CSR Asia is a great social enterprise model to learn from and perhaps even replicate in other developing countries as the CSR as a field is surely growing and big enough for many players.

So, if any of you social entrepreneur think you want to link up with CSR people in the region, they might be your first contacts to talk to!