Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-07-02-Speech-2-184"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20020702.9.2-184"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
". – Mr President, I am pleased to announce the adoption today by the Commission of our new strategy on Corporate Social Responsibility. This document is a follow-up to the Green Paper on CSR, which we presented last summer and, after six months of consultation, we had a large number of very constructive and positive responses from across the Union.
Finally, the Commission will work towards integrating CSR principles across the full range of European Union policies: employment and social affairs, enterprise, development, trade and public procurement.
In terms of follow-up, the forum will be asked to present before the summer of 2004 a report on its work to the Commission, which will then evaluate its results, decide on its future and consider if any other initiative, involving business and other stakeholders in particular, is needed to further promote responsible business.
I would like to congratulate and thank Parliament and, in particular, the rapporteur, Mr Howitt, for his contribution to the consultation on the CSR Green Paper. In a nutshell, the fundamental aim of this strategy is to strengthen the role that business plays in working towards sustainable development in Europe and beyond. Sustainability is not just a matter of governance or of individuals, it is a matter for business.
CSR is about companies integrating social and environmental concerns in their business operations and in their interaction with their stakeholders on a voluntary basis. Many firms have already recognised the importance of responsible business and, as a result, CSR schemes have mushroomed. However, the European Union can add value by helping stakeholders to make CSR more transparent, more open and ultimately more credible.
Corporate social responsibility and corporate governance are two sides of the same coin. "Greenwashing" your social and environmental performance is as bad as "whitewashing" profits. This is why more and more firms are realising that CSR is no longer just a job for the marketing department.
The new CSR strategy which has been adopted today – proposed by myself and Mr Liikanen, the Commissioner responsible for enterprise – seeks to complement existing initiatives by companies themselves and by international organisations such as the OECD and the United Nations.
This strategy supports business and other stakeholder efforts for a better trade-off between economic, social and environmental needs in a globalised economy. It seeks to improve knowledge on CSR through the exchange of good practice, research on the business case for CSR and the development of responsible management skills.
So what in concrete terms have we put forward today? Allow me to mention three main points. First, we have proposed setting up a "European Multi-Stakeholder Forum". Who is it for, what is its purpose and what is it going to do? This forum will bring together leading European representative organisations of employers, employees, consumers and civil society, as well as business networks across Europe. This forum will exchange good practice and seek consensus on guiding principles for CSR tools, such as codes of conduct, reporting, labelling schemes and evaluation mechanisms. This responds to one of the requests made to the Commission in the Howitt report on the Green Paper.
In our view, the forum could play a central role in seeking to set out a common European Union approach based on guiding principles agreed by businesses and stakeholders. The Commission's strategy to promote CSR builds on the voluntary nature of business efforts. The role of the forum will be to increase the consensus between enterprises and other stakeholders. This will help businesses get the most out of their CSR efforts.
Secondly, the strategy will support the promotion of CSR in small and medium-sized enterprises, in particular through awareness raising and capacity-building initiatives, because CSR is by no means the sole preserve of large multinational firms."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples