"The mission of a company, committed to be socially responsible is to support its employees to be citizens of the World and together with them to inspire with positive ideas for sustainable growth of the society. The impact of such behaviour is not only "here" and "now" but also in future."

Elena Marinova, President of Musala Soft

CSR is a concept, voluntary adopted by Musala Soft and implemented in company's strategies. It reveals Musala Soft commitment to the sustainable development and growth of its business, in harmony with the society and the environment. The Green Book of the European Commission provides the following definition of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): "Corporate social responsibility is essentially a concept whereby companies decide voluntarily to contribute to a better society and a cleaner environment."

By declaring company's social responsibility, Musala Soft increases the standards of its social development and endeavours for environment's protection. Musala Soft team works voluntary for the achievement of social and ecological goals as part of the daily business activities. We are convinced that the CSR is a continuous commitment, not a one-time effort; it is a sustainable process and contributes for balancing the three pillars of sustainable growth - economic growth, social prosperity and protection of the environment.

AREAS OF INFLUENCE AND CSR PROJECTS IN MUSALA SOFT

For us, the business social responsibility has a broad set of aspects. On a first place, the compliance with CSR principles supposes adherence to the governmental regulations. On the other hand, implies provision of adequate working conditions; development of employees' professional and personal qualifications; preventive health treatment; development in the social sphere and all relevant ways of support. Finally, this is the responsibility to give back to the society and environment, carrying our charity activities, care for other people and nature, and participate in initiatives in help of the society.

Musala Soft has over 200 employees, who are not only excellent professionals but people that are citizens of the planet with "green thinking" and socially responsible behaviour.

Our initiatives are related to the environment's preservation in the long term, as well as to team's motivation for participation in public and internal eco-campaigns. For us, it is important to have a positive and friendly behaviour when it comes to the environment and to contribute for its preservation by all possible and relevant means. It is our duty being leaders not only in terms of our services' quality but in terms of our green behaviour as well.

ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND DECREASE OF POLLUTION
Energy-saving office

Musala Soft strives for minimizing as much as possible the use of paper in the office. For that purpose, several internal information systems are implemented. They allow us carrying out the daily administrative activities without printing documents. Musala Soft is ISO 9001:2008 and CMMI Level 3 certified and those quality control systems/models are optimized for electronic management of the documentation.

CONTROL UPON POLLUTION
"Private cloud", virtualization and hundreds of toxic batteries less

In 2011 Musala Soft invests in building advanced "private cloud" infrastructure in order to reduce power consumption, noise and heat output, reducing hazardous waste. Changes lead to a better working environment for employees too. Highly efficient servers were purchased, supporting the most advanced energy saving technologies. Through virtualization, they replaced the much larger number of old servers, which led to 50% reduction in electricity consumption for servers.

There was a migration from powerful workstations to a model of desktop virtualization, using "thin" clients, and thus, reducing electricity consumption per workstation with over 60%. The longer exploitation of the "thin" clients, compared to the normal workstations, will lead to a significant reduction in the "electronic garbage" releases on yearly base. "Thin" clients do not need a UPS for each workstation, and that means hundreds of toxic batteries less.

To achieve even higher energy efficiency of IT equipment, Musala Soft decided to move all its servers to a specialized Data Center. In this Center there are air-conditioning systems of high class that allow from 25% to 45% more efficient cooling. To be completely "green" when choosing the data center, it was indispensable for the supplier to have a "free-cooling" system and its own "green" policies.

RECYCLING
Waste separation

Our practices in this field were initiated more than 5 years ago, in the office's recreation zone. Eco-bins for PLASTIC, PAPER and OTHERS are located in the due places. The office paper is collected in a specialized room, dedicated exclusively for gathering the paper/cardboard waste. When certain amounts are collected, volunteering employees gather and transfer the packages to recycling points.

IMPACT ON THE ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCES

Each year, employees' gatherings / team buildings are bound to tourism, tree-planting, cleaning, etc. Nurturing the team spirit is always successful when combining the pleasure with environment care. All employees are familiar with and involved in Musala Soft Green policies and the aim for environmental-friendly behaviour.

HUMAN CAPITAL AND WORKING CONDITIONS

PRODUCT DONATIONS

Part of Musala CSR policy is to provide obsolete technical equipment and other product donations to NGOs, foundations, etc. Among the donations are:
- Computers for Bulgarian schools in Macedonia and Serbia;
- Computers and equipment for Center for the Visually Impaired, Sofia;
- Computers for SOS Children's Villages, Dren village.

EDUCATION AND KNOWLEDGE

With great consistency and dedication, Musala Soft has invested in the IT society through a great number of initiatives. Predominantly, they are oriented towards young people - pupils and students who need to settle on the right track. By launching different initiatives, a large number of young talents have been given the chance to develop and grow:

1). Programming Contest (http://www.codeit.bg/) - CodeIT is the "new generation" programming contest. CodeIT is a product of thorough analyses and coordination with top contestants and teachers in the area of Informatics. We are partnering with top universities, companies and organizations. Among the partners are: American Foundation for Bulgaria; Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics (FMI) at Sofia University; Institute of Mathematics and Informatics at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences; Bulgaria Association of Software Companies (BASSCOM); Microsoft Bulgaria and the Technical University - Sofia, "Together in Class" Foundation. In addition a number of IT companies provide awards for the winners. The main contest's organization is by a special team within Musala Soft - Computer Science Laboratory (CSLab), compound by former and current Olympians from international competitions and Olympiads in Informatics.

2). Konkurs (http://konkurs.musala.com/) - Together with a media partner - PC Magazine Bulgaria, Musala Soft organized a programming contest for 11 years

3). InfoMan Portal (http://infoman.musala.com/) - InfoMan is the online portal in Bulgarian which hosts a community of individuals interested in pursuing Informatics, promoting the free exchange of ideas, past experience and articles written by its readers. It is a huge source of problems in Informatics. Musala Soft, through its CSLab group develops and supports the portal for over 10 years.

4). IT Leaders Academy (http://fmisociety.org/ITLeadersAcademy/) - Represents a series of practical, business and science-oriented lectures and discussions held by leading national and international IT experts from the academic, business and governmental fields. The Academy is a joint initiative of the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics (FMI) at Sofia University and Musala Soft, supported by "FMI Society" Foundation. It is one of a kind forum in Bulgaria, where students can hear about the latest trends in IT, directly by people, who are shaping IT industry's future.

5). International and National Internship Programs - Starting year 2005, Musala Soft has an active international internship program which evolves with company's growth. In 2011 Musala Soft had 26 interns, selected among candidates from Bulgaria, France, Spain, Germany and UK. Internships continue between 3-6 months and since initiative's launch, over 100 students from different IT subjects and countries had the possibility to work in real commercial projects.

6). Musala Soft employees have been and are teaching in different universities - Some of Musala Soft employees are actively engaged in teaching programmes in the main Bulgarian universities with ICT subjects. The lectures are practically-oriented and are focusing on the most popular and modern technologies, models and approaches. In addition the guys from CSLab are participating on a regular basis in the organization of the national competitions for pupils and students in Informatics (they provide the problems for the contests and revise contestants' solutions). Musala Soft supports financially some of these initiatives.

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