EUROPEAN COMMISSION
PRESS RELEASE
Brussels, 29 April 2014
EU Corporate Social Responsibility policy: The
Commission seeks stakeholders’ views on achievements
and future challenges
The Commission is seeking stakeholders’ views about the impact of its Corporate Social
Responsibility (CSR) Strategy over the past three years and on the role it should play in
the future. The Commission's 2011-14 CSR Strategy set an ambitious agenda to
strengthen its implementation at international level and created a number of models on
how to practically implement its principles (MEMO/11/730). More and more CSR is
becoming a valuable tool to improve a company's competitiveness: encouraging social and
environmental responsibility in the corporate sector can also bring benefits in terms of cost
reductions, access to capital, improved customer relationships, human resource
management and innovation capacity. Amongst others, the consultation that the
Commission is launching asks for concrete feedback on how successful the Commission’s
actions have been in enhancing market reward for CSR, further integrating CSR in
education, training and research and better aligning European and global approaches to
CSR avoiding red tape in particular for SMEs. An on-line questionnaire was launched today
and will be open for contributions until 15 August.
European Commissioner Michel Barnier, Acting Commissioner for Industry and
Entrepreneurship, said: "CSR is not just about protecting stakeholders or the value of an
enterprise through compliance with ethical or other standards. It is also, and increasingly,
about creating new value through the innovation that comes from challenging a company’s
status quo and looking for better solutions. We look forward to receiving stakeholders’
valuable feedback on our CSR agenda and on their expectations for the future.”
To the consultation:
http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sustainable-business/corporate-social-responsibility/public-consultation/index_en.htm.
IP/14/491
Identifying the achievements, shortcomings and future challenges
in EU CSR policy
At the end of 2014, the Commission’s current policy on Corporate Social Responsibility will
phase out. The 2011 CSR Communication was an important milestone. Not only did it
provided a modernised definition of CSR as the “responsibility of enterprises for their
impacts on society”, but it further set out the expectation that companies should have a
process to integrate social, environmental, ethical, human rights and consumer concerns
into their business operations and core strategy in close cooperation with their
stakeholders. Furthermore, it made clear that the development of CSR should be led by
enterprises themselves.
The substantive questions of this consultation are divided into three parts:
1. Feedback on the role of the Commission in CSR: The role of the Commission and
the identification of the key actors.
2. Feedback on the Commission’s agenda for action: The responses shall indicate to
what extent the Commission’s actions were successful and whether policy initiatives have
had an important influence on CSR. The eight work streams include:
1. Enhancing the visibility of CSR and disseminating good practices:
1.1 In 2013, the European Commission organised the first European CSR awards;
2.1 The Commission launched three projects to establish sector-based multistakeholder platforms (see the projects in the Fruit Juice, Machine tools and
Social Housing sectors).
2. Improving and tracking levels of trust in business: the Commission published in
2013 a Eurobarometer survey on this matter.
3. Improving self- and co-regulation processes: the Commission launched a
Community of Practice platform to work with business and other organisations to
develop a code of good practice.
4. Enhancing market reward for CSR: the Commission revised its public procurement
Directives to take better account of environmental and social concerns. The
Commission also co-sponsored a project on building the capacity of the European
investment community to use and integrate environmental, social and governance
(ESG) information.
5. Improving company disclosure of social and environmental information: the
Commission revised the Accounting Directive on the disclosure of non-financial and
diversity information by certain large companies and groups. The new rules were
recently agreed between the European Parliament and the Council and will enter
into force in mid-2016.
6. Further integrating CSR into education, training and research: the Commission
sponsored for example a research project on Impact Measurement and
Performance Analysis of CSR.
7. Emphasising the importance of national and sub-national CSR policies: the
Commission launched a CSR peer review process with EU Member States.
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8. Better aligning European and global approaches to CSR:
8.1. The Commission published a first monitoring report of the commitments of
large European enterprises to take account of internationally recognised CSR
guidelines and principles.
8.2. Implementing the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: the
Commission published guides for SMEs and for enterprises in three sectors.
8.3. Emphasising CSR in relations with other countries and regions in the world:
as an example, CSR features more frequently on the agenda of political
dialogues with third countries and trade negotiations (see for example the
EU-South Korean Free Trade Agreement, Art. 13.6 (2) and Annex 13 1. (d)).
3. Future issues on CSR: Questions on what stakeholders believe the future role of the
Commission in CSR should be, what the main challenges for an EU policy on CSR are and
how they would rank the importance of CSR for the future of EU economy.
Background
The Commission will publish a technical report on the results of the consultation after
the summer. Further, the Commission will draw on the consultation’s outputs when
preparing the plenary meeting of the CSR Multistakeholder Forum, which is scheduled
for the end of this year. The Forum is hosted and facilitated by the Commission and
gathers relevant stakeholders, including business, trade unions, non-governmental
organisations, academia and other organisations, to discuss key topics relating to CSR.
This year’s Multistakeholder Forum will be a review meeting to prepare the future
direction of the Commission’s CSR policy post-2014.
For more information
Link to CSR website
Link to CSR strategy
Contacts:
Carlo Corazza (+32 2 295 17 52) Twitter: @ECspokesCorazza
Sara Tironi (+32 2 299 04 03)
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