Corporate Responsibility : Community Investment

Community Investment

TCO also budgets approximately $1 million annually for an additional voluntary Community Investment Program (CIP). TCO has recently updated the CIP to more closely align with the needs and goals of our community and business.

TCO established an internal Community Investment Council (CIC) comprised of individuals from various departments to direct TCO's discretionary Community Investment Program budget. The TCO CIC has created a strategic framework that moves TCO's community investment from charitable giving to proactive programs that support the socio-economic goals and needs of both TCO and Atyrau Oblast. TCO seeks to create a direct relationship between community investments and TCO's operations, moving from local tactical investments to community investment as a core business strategy. This requires subjecting community investments to the same scrutiny as other business investments, such as monitoring and evaluation.

A recently completed social baseline was presented and drawn upon to revise, refine and create a framework that was locally relevant. It identified the following community needs and priorities around education and training; water supply and quality; environmental quality and misunderstanding; and quality of health care.

TCO's CIP Strategy

Considering the results of the social baseline, the CIC created a strategic framework that linked TCO business objectives and TCO socio-economic objectives, while at the same time being solidly grounded in community needs and priorities. TCO developed the following vision and focus areas.

The vision for TCO community investment is to:

Add value to the business and community in an ethically and socially responsible way.
Build human, societal and organizational capacity to sustain a thriving local economy and society without dependence on TCO.

Tengizchevroil Community Investment Focus Areas:

Building capacity in people or organizations to benefit TCO and community
Education, training and socioeconomic development
Health education and quality improvement
Environmental education and improvement
Basic human needs, specifically solutions to water challenges
Cultural preservation and awareness, specifically further the Kazakh language.

We continue to be dedicated to adding value to the communities in which we operate. In this slight modification, we streamlined our focus areas for investment, emphasized a partnership approach and added the same vigor to planning, executing and measuring community investment that we use in other areas of our business.

Partnership Approach

TCO is moving from a philanthropic model of community investment to a partnership-based approach. Public private partnerships (PPP) bring together business, local institutions, government, non-governmental organizations and development agencies via shared missions, desired outcomes, and accountability. In these collaborative relationships, partners plan jointly, share resources, and share risks and rewards. The partnerships provide opportunities to build social capital and capacity. Most importantly, PPP investment is more likely to result in sustainable solutions that improve the local socio-economic environment.

TCO seeks to create a direct relationship between community investments and TCO's operations, moving from local tactical investments to community investment as a core business strategy. This requires subjecting community investments to the same scrutiny as other business investments such as competition for funds through a request for proposals, forward looking budget planning, monitoring and measurement.

Measurement

TCO new community investment monitoring, evaluation and reporting system ensures that the company maximizes development benefits for our host communities while investing in ways relevant to our business needs. Monitoring involves the systematic and consistent collection of relevant data and information at regular intervals to measure project or program progress and partner performance.

Evaluation involves the systematic, objective and transparent appraisal of a partner or specific project or program design, results and effectiveness at a given point in time. Reporting provides regular feedback on the progress, problems, successes and lessons learned of project or program implementation.