The key role that Eskom plays towards corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability in South Africa.

Abstract

The implementation of sustainable development challenge facing South Africa is significant. There appears to be a growing interest within the private sector to participate in partnership with the public sector in contributing towards corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes and initiatives. This partnership seeks to address the overall socio-economic and sustainable development of the country. However, it is an enormous task to address socio-economic challenges in South Africa due to high expectations. The aim of this study is specifically focused on investigating Eskom’s contributions to the sustainable developmental needs of the community in which it operates as a state owned enterprise. Furthermore, the intent is to examine Eskom’s current funding strategy, focus and policies in an attempt to investigate Eskom’s involvement in corporate social investment sustainability. A quantitative research design is employed in this study. The target population of this research is the Eskom employees selected from the four Eskom divisions, namely, Generation, Transmission, Distribution and Corporate (which includes ESDEF). The sample was the 95 employees randomly selected, hence those who responded were 61 on the stipulated date. Eskom was chosen, because it plays a major role in accelerating growth in the South African economy by providing electricity. Data was collected using the Eskom’s e-mailing system which referred to as the GroupWise system and used as a database that contained the population of all Eskom Holdings employees, and the questionnaire survey was developed by the researcher. The research study revealed that, although Eskom makes significant contributions in corporate social responsibility, communities need to be brought on board to define the funding objective and to select projects to be funded by Eskom. The results of study should be regarded as exploratory and provides directions to researchers for further, more in-depth research in this area. From the findings it appears as if perception plays the most important role in determining whether or not organisations support social responsibility programmes.