The American-Costa Rican Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) recognized Dole through its daughter company, Standard Fruit Company de Costa Rica S.A., with the Social Responsibility in Action Award in the Employees Category.

The company was awarded for their project "De la Mano con Dole" — which loosely translates to "Hand-in-Hand with Dole".

The project is an initiative that works towards positively impacting the social development of Standard Fruit Company of Costa Rica (aka Dole Costa Rica) employees and their families, using the Business Multidimensional Poverty Index (bMPI) methodology developed by the University of Oxford.

The bMPI methodology seeks to measure poverty—not only from the traditional way of per capita income—but also by incorporating dimensions such as, access to health, education, housing, work, social protection and 16 other key indicators.

This allows the organization to identify gaps in social programs and work towards solving the multidimensional poverty issues confronted by their employees and their relatives.

Dole is the first agribusiness company in the world to apply the bMPI methodology to address the challenges of social development.

During the diagnostic stage of implementation, Dole Costa Rica achieved a participation rate of 87% in response to socioeconomic surveys among its more than 5300 employees, ranking near the highest level of participation among the companies that have applied the method in the country.

Analysis of the discovered “deficiencies” refocused short-term priorities of the company towards the prevention of disease and the health of our employees at the onset of Covid, to longer term strategies of social protection and health.

At the end of September 2021, 500 gaps had been closed.

“We are very proud of being the first banana and pineapple producer to implement this system and seeing such positive results for our employees and families here in Costa Rica,” said Mr. Renato Acuña, President of Dole Fresh Fruit Latin America.

For this project, Dole management has prioritized addressing the following needs: people without health insurance; people with disabilities not receiving state assistance; older adults without a pension, people out of the workforce due to family obligations; and households without drinking water.