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Wherever Caltex operates, the company is committed to helping people realise their long- term dreams through practical and necessary steps. This is in keeping with one of the company’s basic tenets calling for it “to be a good citizen and neighbor, respecting national customs and practices of various countries; and to develop an understanding of and interest in the welfare of each nation, its communities and its people.”
 Since the company’s inception, these principles have guided Caltex’s community involvement wherever it operates. When Bapco discovered oil in Bahrain, it was quick to recognise and support the many human social needs, building a new town, school, hospital and roads in close proximity to its oil field and to the Bahrain Refinery. By the 1940s and 1950s, Bapco sponsored training and educational programmes, offering formal instruction in Trade English and arithmetic for Bahraini employees, providing university scholarships for Bahraini undergraduates, constructing school buildings in outlying districts, and initiating summer employment and industrial training to secondary and technical school students.
Nowhere has this commitment to the people and their needs been more evident than in South Africa. In 1977, Caltex became a founder signatory of the Sullivan Principles in South Africa. Caltex backed up this position by providing support for education, programmes to promote black South Africans to higher positions as well as access to housing developments for subsidized home mortgages and other programmes. Over a six-year period from 1981 to 1986, Caltex’s Adopt-a-School projects and other educational support programmes enriched more than 35,000 pupils, students and teachers at 36 schools nationwide. In 1987, the company began supporting the development of non-racial educational facilities in South Africa, opening the first new, totally non-racial school at Tongaat, Natal as part of its New Era Schools Trust. Caltex’s educational initiatives also ranged from teacher education to tutoring and adult education. The company’s commitment to job creation was far-reaching, including its major support for the Urban Foundation and the National African Federated Chamber of Commerce for Black Businessmen in South Africa. Another initiative involved sponsorship of the Get Ahead Foundation, a grassroots approach to black business development, directed at stimulating and encouraging the informal market in South Africa. Caltex also supported more than 200 health service agencies and a broad spectrum of community and welfare programs. And the company demonstrated its commitment to ensuring greater social justice for all South Africans through its support for the Law Review Project.
In its March 11, 1985 issue, Newsweek praised Caltex for its progressive role in South Africa. And Caltex Chairman Howard Yergin remarked: “We think our presence there has been very constructive. Our own policies with respect to non-white employees are completely color-blind. We have people moving up in management as their skills and educational ability permit, regardless of color…we think it’s very important for us and other American and European companies to be there and to follow enlightened policies.”
The Caltex community and cultural programmes vary according to local needs. Caltex has been active in its arts sponsorships, ranging from a production of Rossini’s Lucretia Borgia at the Sydney Opera House to performances of Swan Lake at Manila’s Children’s Theatre to concerts in Hong Kong. In New Zealand, Caltex sponsored the production of the country’s first opera written by a Maori composer and in 1985 and 1986 sponsored six productions of the Wellington City Opera.
 Art contests have been a recurring programme for Caltex subsidiaries from Ireland to India. A favorite motif of the Irish contests during the 1950s was to encourage paintings about “Things I Love About Ireland.” And when Caltex sponsored a Children’s Painting Contest in India during the 1970s, company ads read: “If there’s a budding Picasso in Darjeeling, trust Caltex to find it out.”
Sports sponsorships have ranged from the 4th British Commonwealth Paraplegic Games, held in New Zealand in 1974, to the Bahrain International Marathon and support for Tanzanian athletes at the 1984 Olympic Games, to the 13th Asian Games held in Bangkok, Thailand.
The company crossed cultural boundaries with a series of award-winning films ranging from “The Big Cats of Africa,” produced by Caltex Oil (Kenya) Ltd., to “Pearl of the Gulf” (Bahrain), “Land of Endeavor” (South Africa), “The Golden Crescent” (Turkey) and “Treasures of Thailand,” which premiered at the Smithsonian Institution under the auspices of the Thai ambassador to the U.S. An advertisement, dated April 1958, stated that Caltex International Films were distributed in over 70 countries, saying: “These films have been produced to foster understanding and good will, the human climate in which the arts, science and commerce best thrive and men live in peace.”
 Caltex has run numerous campaigns on behalf of the environment and endangered species, including one in the 1980s that focused on protecting the White Rhino in Kenya. In recognition of the company’s contributions to environmental conservation in South Africa, an ornithological research station on Marcus Island was named for Caltex.
Since the company moved its headquarters to Singapore in 1999, it has been the title sponsor of the Caltex Masters golf tournament, and has leveraged the tournament to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for charities both in Singapore and the region. Other recent community investments have included Caltex Fund, a programme in the Philippines to house and educate homeless children; Road Star, a driver reward programme in the United Arab Emirates to encourage safe driving; and a series of short feature films about community projects in the Asia Pacific region, where a Caltex project or employee has made a difference for an individual.
At the time of Caltex’s 50th anniversary, one historian stated that the company’s “reputation as a responsible corporate citizen and as a fair employer has never been tarnished in any corner of the globe where the Caltex banner flies. This is the company’s highest idea, its proudest legacy and its most cherished birthday gift.”
Those words still ring true today.
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