Another pertinent issue is that Zimbabwe’s four hotel chains need to incorporate
broader issues in its CSR agenda such as human rights, governance and democracy
and adopt anti-systemic measures to address the structural causes of the several
socio-environmental problems that confront society today. This appears a more
sustainable option as opposed to dealing with symptoms of social-environmental
problems suggested by the largely, “corporate philanthropic route” taken by the bulk
of Zimbabwe’s hotel chains. The adoption of the “philanthropic route” by the four hotel
chains lends credence to the observation that in many developing countries CSR fails to
address systemic causes of societal problems and remains largely piecemeal and
principally self-centered (Dartey-Baah and Amporisah-Tawiah, 2011; Visser, 2007).
Furthermore, the fact that in their reporting, the Zimbabwean four hotel chains were
silent on such issues as the environmental and social impacts of the hotels’ operations,
human rights, governance and democracy brings to mind the notion of greenwash.
Lyon and Maxwell (2011, p. 9) define greenwash as “selective disclosure of positive
information about a company’s environmental and social performance, without full
disclosure of negative information on these dimensions, so as to create an overly
positive corporate image.” In this respect, it appears worthwhile for researchers to pay
attention to those themes that corporations do not mention in their CSR reports as well