Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

CSR Report Published by European Parliament - March 2007

The European Parliament published in March 2007 a report on “Corporate Social Responsibility: a new partnership”.

The following articles in the report may be of particular interest to you:

  • Article 16 addresses investors and support “full participation by investors as stakeholders in the CSR debate at the EU level”. This is an important step in advancing SRI across Europe and deepening the knowledge about the relationship between CSR and sustainable development.
  • Article 27 invites the European Commission to revisit the proposal to include social and environmental reporting alongside financial reporting as a means to “raise awareness of the provisions concerning social and environmental reporting within the 2001 Commission Recommendation on environmental disclosure”. This is a positive advancement and echoes work that Eurosif has been doing for the past several years to address social, environmental considerations in a harmonised fashion across Europe.
  • Following on some of the trends in the Member States, Article 33 goes on to demand that the EC consider an EU-wide “statement of interest [ sic] principles for investment funds” to achieve their goals. Additionally, Eurosif has asked that the European Parliament ensure that 'interest' is replaced by the word 'investment' as this was a mistake in the document.

You may download a PDF of the report, with these articles bookmarked.

Current state of CSR

CSR, as viewed by the EC, remains a voluntary initiative for European businesses to practice that goes above and beyond what is required by law. Since 2001, there have been a number of initiatives around CSR led by the various Directorate Generals (DG) of the EC in order to raise awareness and understanding among stakeholders and the general public. Although the EC’s interest in CSR remains high, there is no consensus over the future shaping of mandatory law in this space. There is however a continuing dialogue over its future through the European Alliance on CSR, of which Eurosif is the investor stakeholder.

Eurosif position

Eurosif believes that CSR should largely remain a voluntary initiative but that there are areas within its large remit, such as transparency, that can be tackled more effectively through the legislative process. As regards to CSR, Eurosif wrote a response to the 2001 published Green Paper by the EC and participated in the 2 year Multi-Stakeholder initiative led by the EC. Eurosif continues to play a role as the investor stakeholder in the European Alliance on CSR.

Background

Green Paper on CSR

In July 2001 the EC's DG for Employment and Social Affairs published a consultation Green Paper on CSR and called for responses from stakeholders.

Eurosif's response to the Green Paper, in brief, called for increased transparency, disclosure and reporting from companies, SRI research agencies, regulatory bodies and all pooled investment vehicles e.g. pension funds. The submission also called for EC support for research on CSR and SRI, the integration of social and environmental considerations into public procurement policies and encouragement for the integration of CSR and SRI into education syllabuses.

A full copy of the submission is below. All responses to the Green Paper, including submissions from Eurosif and the UK Social Investment Forum, can be viewed from the EC's website:

EC Multi-stakeholder Forum

In 2002, the EC set up the Multi-Stakeholder Forum as a means to generate a consensus from a diverse group of different stakeholders representing the European civil society.

In 2007, Eurosif is invited by the EC to be an official member of the Coordination Committee of the European Multi-stakeholder Forum on CSR.
On behalf of Xavier Prats, Director in DG Employment and Social Affairs, and Pedro Ortún, Director in DG Enterprise and Industry, Eurosif was officially invited to participate in upcoming forum discussions on improving knowledge about the relationship between CSR and sustainable development, and exploring the appropriateness of establishing common guiding principles for CSR practices and instruments. Matt Christensen, Eurosif Executive Director participated in the first meetings in February and May 2007. The first meeting discussed three primary areas that could be sources of future collaboration among the different stakeholders: Education/Research into CSR matters, Transparency/Credibility of the CSR/SRI field, and an analysis of the EC-published Compendium of Existing CSR/SRI Initiatives. On the second meeting, Eurosif provided input on transparency needs for improved relations between investors and other stakeholders.

One of Eurosif's key objective in being an active member of the Multi-stakeholder Forum is to raise the profile of SRI in the discussion so that the Commission better understands the impact SRI makes on CSR.

For more information about Eurosif's role in the Multi-stakeholder CSR forum, see also the section on Corporate Transparency

Conference "CSR at the global level: what role for the EU?"

Eurosif was invited to attend this conference in Brussels on December 7, 2007, which was organised by the DG Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities.

In his keynote speech, John Ruggie, special representative of the UN Secretary-General on the issue of human rights and businesses, outlined challenges to the standard model of CSR he has seen across the world:

John Ruggie mentioned the lack of an authoritative system of best practices, best benchmarking – and suggested that the EU could play a role in generating soft standards in this respect.

In her speech, Nicole Notat, Chairwoman of Vigeo, invited the EU to integrate responsible investors in the EU CSR framework and to facilitate the generalisation of CSR reporting. She also suggested that the EU could develop some sort of accreditation for rating agencies and their methodologies.

(Last Updated: July 2009)