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3.1. Corporate Responsibility: an introduction
For more than half a century, there has been increasing pressure on corporate organizations to balance social and environmental aspects along with economic prosperity. This has led to the evolution of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and other related areas, such as corporate sustainability (CS), business ethics, corporate citizenship, and stakeholder management.
Despite longstanding debates about CSR, until now there has been little agreement over its definition, due to:
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Differences in national and cultural approaches to business Differences in espoused motivation for CSR - doing it because it is morally correct, or doing it because it makes good business sense Differences in disciplinary backgrounds, perspectives and methods
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Although hundreds of definitions of corporate social responsibility have been published, the one we refer to in this section has been developed by the European Commission as the responsibility of enterprises for their impact on society” (1). The Commission encourages that enterprises "should have in place a process to integrate social, environmental, ethical human rights and consumer concerns into their business operations and core strategy in close collaboration with their stakeholders”.
Guidelines and Principles that the Commission's CSR strategy is built upon: i United Nations Global Compact (2) Ï United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights Ï ISO 26000 Guidance Standard on Social Responsibility (4) i International Labour Organization Tripartite Declaration of Principles concerning Multinational
Enterprises on Social Policy Ï OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises
The past five years CSR has grown up and has become a mature issue in terms of how companies are thinking about it with boards of directors taking it seriously. CEO's like Howard Shultz (of Starbucks), CEO Marc Bolland (of Marks & Spencer), Paul Polman (of Unilever), and Mark Parker (at Nike) see it being central to their company's future. It's gotten more grown up in that it is something that is designed to influence core business such as product development & Innovation and marketing, and deliver real business value. There's still a long way to go, but more and more there are a lot of examples of CSR's impact. CSR can make a difference, not only in creating a better world, but also stronger, more resilient business.
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