Corporate Social Responsibility: paving the way for growth

Legal Affairs Committee unanimously adopts Report on social responsibility in business practices.

In his Report,  the European Parliament's Rapporteur on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Raffaele Baldassarre MEP shares the European Commission's new strategy that defines CSR as "the responsibility of enterprises for their impact on society."

"The renewed strategy will help businesses contributing to the development of a social market economy and which meet the objectives of the Europe 2020 Strategy, providing jobs and paving the way for economic recovery", said Raffaele Baldassarre MEP.

In his view, CSR initiatives and policies should be based on a mix of voluntary and, where appropriate, regulatory measures in order to provide consumers and investors with adequate information about businesses' social and environmental behaviour. At the same time, specific measures should be drawn up aimed at disseminating CSR among SMEs.

"It is necessary to put the ongoing debate on Corporate Social Responsibility  in a broader setting which, while ensuring that CSR remains primarily a voluntary policy, also leaves room for dialogue on regulatory measures, wherever it might be appropriate", said the Rapporteur.

"Transparency on social and environmental information provided by companies can increase investor and consumer trust. Nonetheless, this should be done in line with the multi-dimensional nature and the diversity of the CSR policies carried out by businesses", said Raffaele Baldassarre MEP.

Any regulatory action should guarantee businesses the greatest possible flexibility of action, since businesses bear primary responsibility for taking CSR forward. The Rapporteur opposes any 'catch-all' solution which would result in unnecessary red tape and counter-productive operational strictures.

Finally, the Rapporteur takes the view that Parliament should make greater SME involvement in CSR a political priority for the coming years. SMEs, which account for 98% of Europe’s businesses and are closely tied with the region or city in which they operate, can play a fundamental role in promoting the uptake of CSR.

What is more, SMEs within a given sector can get together to tackle shared social and environmental problems, thus reducing the cost of the action required and bringing about improvements that would be difficult to achieve for a single SME acting on its own. 

(Translation from the original Italian)