A subsidiary of Dole recently received recognition from the American-Costa Rican Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) with a Social Responsibility in Action Award in the Employees Category for its social development project.
“We are very proud of being the first banana and pineapple producer to implement this system and seeing such positive results for our employees and families here in Costa Rica,” President of Dole Fresh Fruit Latin America Renato Acuña said in a news release. “The strategies developed in this program, including social counseling and community care projects, seek to meet needs and provide the necessary capacities for better human development.”
In socioeconomic surveys from its 5,300 employees, Standard Fruit Company de Costa Rica S.A. garnered a participation rate of 87%, the release said.
The company was recognized for its "De la Mano con Dole" project with an award that considered several factors, including health, education, housing, work and social protection, according to the release.
Dole’s Hand-in-Hand project is an enterprise that works toward making a positive impact on the social development of Standard Fruit Company of Costa Rica (aka Dole Costa Rica) employees and their families, utilizing the Business Multidimensional Poverty Index (bMPI) methodology curated by the University of Oxford, the release said.
“Dole is the first agribusiness company in the world to apply the bMPI methodology to address the challenges of social development,” according to the release. “During the diagnostic stage of implementation, Dole Costa Rica achieved a participation rate of 87% in response to socioeconomic surveys among its more than 5,300 employees, ranking near the highest level of participation among the companies that have applied the method in the country.”
Dole management utilized the project to examine the following needs: people without health insurance, people with disabilities not receiving state assistance, older adults without a pension, people out of the workforce due to family obligations and households without drinking water.