The Asia Responsible Enterprise Awards programme (AREA) recognises and honours Asian businesses for championing sustainable and responsible entrepreneurship in the following categories:

These programmes demonstrate the participants’ leadership, sincerity and on-going commitment in incorporating responsible and ethical values, legal compliance, respect for people and individuals, involvement in communities and protection of the environment into the way they run their businesses. There is no limit to the number of categories each business may enter as long as the participant is able to meet the criteria.

The Awards are an extension of our founding pillars of Responsible Entrepreneurship and Investment in People and forms part of Enterprise Asia triangle of Responsible Entrepreneurship; Environment, Community and People.

Since 2009, AREA has been hosted regionally, namely for the South Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia chapters awarding companies for their respective nations. In 2015 Enterprise Asia had embarked on a more inclusive AREA 2015 chapter awarding the best CSR programmes from the whole of Asia. The Ceremony sees to hundreds of attendees, including business and government leaders, diplomatic representatives, social and community leaders, local and international media.

As Asia’s leading award for responsible entrepreneurship, AREA aims to inculcate a culture of ethics and universal justice in the running of businesses as part of a sustainable entrepreneurial framework.

In 2015, Enterprise Asia has also embarked on a new platform – itbeginshere.asia – an online portal to Asia’s leading CSR programmes. Today, the giving back is no more a check-box notion taken on by corporations, but instead our goals are aligned with ensuring its sustainability to our stakeholders and those around us. Itbeginshere.asia introduces a platform purely to share and benefit from Asia’s best CSR practices.