The first Business Leaders Forum Serbia was founded on June 4, 2008 at a festive ceremony held in the National Bank of Serbia. Companies members of the Forum: Radio diffusion company B92, Erste Bank, Holcim Srbija a.d, Lafarge BFC, Phillip Morris International, Coca-Cola Hellenic, British American Tobacco, US Steel Serbia, PricewaterhouseCoopers, KMPG International, Vip mobile d.o.o, Droga Kolinska, Henkel Merima and Societe Generale Bank, which have integrated corporate social responsibility in their business, signed Memorandum of understanding.
Business Leaders Forum Serbia is the first coalition of socially responsible companies in Serbia established with a mission to stimulate development of corporate social responsibility and set a permanent and stabile practice of operation devoted to interests of the whole community. It has been conceived as a network of companies willing to voluntarily integrate social, ethical and ecological aspects in their everyday operations and improve society through cooperation with non-profit organizations, state institutions and other interested parties.
A special guest at the founding ceremony was Jerry Greenfield, a co-founder of the company Ben&Jerry's Homemade, which is a leader in the ice-cream production and a pioneer of corporate social responsibility in the world. He recommended to the present that companies socially responsible to their communities and environment can just increase and not decrease their profit. "In our business, we have tended to improve new models of economic equilibrium, use just natural raw materials, respect our employees and our co-citizens and plead for peace and justice. Those are some of the values we have integrated in our operations since the very beginning, and we have passed a long way of transition from a small to a big company and realized a huge profit", said Mr. Greenfield, who at the end of the gathering served up to all representatives of companies-members of Business Leaders Forum Serbia the well-known ice-cream Ben&Jerry's, which was sent to Serbia just for this occasion.
With a support of Institute for Sustainable Communities and USAID, Smart Kolektiv is an initiator and an administrator of Business Leaders Forum Serbia. The Executive Director of SMart Kolektiv, Neven Marinovic, pointed out that the founding of Business Leaders Forum Serbia is a contribution to the creation of more modern and more humane society and to our country becoming a better place for life and business. "We want to show that we have a business elite in the most positive and most generous sense. I hope Business Leaders Forum will serve as an inspiration to all companies, stimulate positive changes and promote the best practice in the improvement of business environment in society", said Marinovic.
