A programme area of the African Institute of Corporate Citizenship (AICC) – is an international multi-stakeholder platform which facilitates actionable learning through creating an opportunity for companies, organizations, and the broader civil society to share relevant experiences, and contribute to creating tangible solutions to the complex developmental challenges facing the continent.


The ACSF, a membership-based forum, offers a strong basis for multi-sector partnership formation, developing innovative approaches to conducting business in the marketplace, approaching discussions with a problem-solving objective, and disseminating research, information, and reports on corporation sustainability initiatives. The ACSF works with its members, addressing key corporate sustainability challenges they face through conducting focused research and developing toolkits for their usage.



Why this forum?

It is clearly acknowledged that business, acting responsibly, have a clear role to play in driving sustainable economic growth and competitiveness in Africa. However, the solutions required to achieve this are often too complex and the resources too thinly spread across the various sectors for business to do it alone. The development of an African multi-stakeholder platform, which facilitates action learning and the sharing of relevant experiences relating to corporate sustainability, is critical to ensure that sustainable economic growth is achieved in a manner that not only makes good business sense but maximises benefit to governments and society as a whole. It is also essential that at a time when the both the African and international agendas surrounding corporate sustainability are being developed that Africa has a strong platform from which to voice it’s own issues and concerns and equally through which it is able to highlight local solutions to key African and international developmental challenges in which business are seen to be a key stakeholder.

What we stand for

We define corporate sustainability as an approach for business towards creating long-term economic growth and competitiveness, through embracing opportunities and managing economic, social and environmental risks.

Members of the Forum commit to the following principles as part of achieving competitive sustainability advantage in their business:

• Operating with good corporate governance practice that upholds the highest standard in assessing non-financial risks and opportunities;
• Being transparent and engaging in meaningful dialogue with stakeholders as to the economic, social and environmental impacts of their business activities;
• Encouraging the integration, management and measurement of responsible business practice across the full range of a company’s business activities;
• Striving for continuous improvement in responsible business practice;
• Through partnership and individual company action supporting a proactive approach to all social and environmental challenges;
• Providing employees with safe and healthy work conditions, the elimination of discriminatory work practices and the adherence to basic human rights;
• Inspiring and leading on corporate responsibility in Africa; and
• Achieving good return on investment while still fulfilling these principles.

Why join

Many private and public sector enterprises are recognising that to do business in Africa successfully, they have to address corporate sustainability actively as a business imperative. Apart from the social and environmental risks inherent with operating on the continent, integrating responsible business practice throughout a company's activities is also pertinent in order to develop market opportunities in a way that reflects societal needs.

While not endorsing a company's activities, the Forum provides companies with a multi-stakeholder platform to demonstrate practically their commitment to responsible growth and development in Africa. It also offers access to a valuable knowledge resource, based on Africa's own unique challenges and practices that take into account international trends in corporate sustainability.

At a wider level, government, civil society and communities are realising the importance of developing a range a non-traditional multi-sector alliances and partnerships as a crucial aspect of meeting current African developmental challenges. Such a Forum offers non-business players a key reference point for engagement on a range of corporate sustainability issues.

The Africa Corporate Sustainability Forum provides its members with a wide range of benefits that include:

• Regular updates, highlighting current initiatives in Africa and internationally, which have direct relevance to business, broader civil society and government with regard to corporate sustainability;
• Enhanced membership access to the Forum's portal, which provides information, resources, partnership opportunities, tools, policy analysis and learning networks designed to meet company, multi-stakeholder partners, sector or country corporate sustainability needs;
• Advisory services, which includes:
  • support towards measuring and benchmarking corporate sustainability systems and processes;
  • evaluation and advice on corporate governance structures and tools;
  • commentary, support and guidance on corporate sustainability reporting and assurance issues;
  • facilitation of multi-stakeholder stakeholder engagement activities;
  • government or civil society support on constructive engagement with business and;
  • in addition, comprehensive ongoing support will be provided at discounted rates;
• International and Africa-specific training and skills upgrading through courses available to members;
• Privileged access to tools developed on behalf of the Forum;
• Networking and alliance building opportunities, including small group engagement, country visits/experiential learning events and conference calls with key business, government and civil society leaders talking on issues relating to Africa and the role of corporate sustainability;
• Access to cutting edge research and case studies, including all reports published by AICC;
• The space to influence public policy relating to corporate sustainability issues at a national, continental and international level;
• Includes membership to ReportCom, which is an African knowledge exchange and network of sustainability reporting companies and report users set up by AICC in partnership with the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA);
• Discounted rates to the bi-annual internationally-recognised AICC Africa Corporate Citizenship Convention;
• Exposure on AICC's and the Forum's website with hyperlinks to individual company websites; and
• Enhanced access to information, websites and networks of international corporate responsibility players.

Membership

Founding members
These shall be made up of ten principal supporters, who participate actively in establishing the Forum. Founding members will contribute an initial charitable donation of US$25,000 towards the institutional and organisational development of the Forum. This entitles such members to free membership for the first two years. Founding members shall also be acknowledged as such on both AICC's and the Forum's website and on relevant materials, with their logos displayed in a special section.

General members
Membership to the Forum is open to businesses, public sector and civil society/NGO organisations. The annual fee for members is as set out in the matrix below. Membership to the Africa Corporate Sustainability Forum also requires a company's commitment to responsible growth and development in line with the principles of the Forum.