CSR - What?

Corporate Social Responsibility:

Is a type of international private business self-regulation that aims to contribute to societal goals of a philanthropic, activist, or charitable nature by engaging in or supporting volunteering or ethically-oriented practices. While it has been considered a form of corporate self-regulation for some time, over the last decade or so it has moved considerably from voluntary decisions at the level of individual organisations, to mandatory schemes at regional, national and international levels. (Fortunately)

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On the other hand what unfortunate is, that if you ask people in your company very few of them know what CSR is (from personal experience). Only directly involved people with CSR departments or maybe executive level knows (<10%).

If we go back to the roots, it should have been something self implied or voluntary. The fact that we have reached strict regulations, it means this was not working, and that's sad.

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I personally believe this could take a more positive direction, if companies would inform and educate their employees. There are several ways to do that, but I will go in detail maybe in a following article.

Often employees are really open to such initiatives, but they do not know that their company has such initiatives. With a bit of guidance huge steps can be made!

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If you would like to have some in-depth knowledge please lookup the ISO26000 non regulatory standard, I have to specify before though:

The practical value of ISO 26000 has been debated. It might be limited if it merely provided a common understanding of social responsibility instead of also facilitating management routines and practices leading to social responsibility. Despite the non-certifiably, some scholars see distinct elements of a management system standard also in ISO 26000.

Core subjects of ISO 26000

1. Organisational governance
2. Human rights
3. Labour practices
4. Environment
5. Fair operating practices
6. Consumer issues
7. Community involvement and development

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REPORTING

According to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), a CSR report can be defined as:

“A sustainability report is a report published by a company or organization about the economic, environmental and social impacts caused by its everyday activities. A sustainability report also presents the organization’s values and governance model, and demonstrates the link between its strategy and its commitment to a sustainable global economy.”

For a full reporting guide you can download all the GRI standards for free:

https://www.globalreporting.org/standards/gri-standards-download-center/

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EUROPE

The DIRECTIVE 2014/95/EU OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 22 October 2014, introduced measures that strengthens the transparency and accountability of approximately 6000 companies in the EU. These so-called ‘public interest entities’ with more than 500 employees have to report yearly.

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32014L0095

EU law requires large companies to disclose certain information on the way they operate and manage social and environmental challenges.

This helps investors, consumers, policy makers and other stakeholders to evaluate the non-financial performance of large companies and encourages these companies to develop a responsible approach to business.

Companies are required to include non-financial statements in their annual reports from 2018 onwards.

Companies that must comply

EU rules on non-financial reporting only apply to large public-interest companies with more than 500 employees. This covers approximately 6,000 large companies and groups across the EU, including:

• listed companies
• banks
• insurance companies
• other companies designated by national authorities as public-interest entities

Information to be disclosed

Under Directive 2014/95/EU, large companies have to publish reports on the policies they implement in relation to

• environmental protection
• social responsibility and treatment of employees
• respect for human rights
• anti-corruption and bribery
• diversity on company boards (in terms of age, gender, educational and professional background)

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TOP REPORTING

A lot of companies are doing a really good job in this:

As the CSR reports are usually public, feel free to take a look at theirs, and why not ask your company if they did it?

The reports should be out for 2019 or will be released soon!

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Thanks. (: