Corporate Social Responsibility

English (en) svenska (sv)

Corporate Social Responsibility, shortened CSR, address how companies and organizations are working on environmental and social responsibility in their business. There is no official definition of what CSR is or should mean for a company, CSR can mean different things to different companies. There are also other similar concepts such as Corporate Responsibility, Corporate Citizenship, Corporate Governance that are in various ways linked to CSR. In Swedish CSR has been translated into “företagens samhällsansvar eller hållbar affärsutveckling”, but typically, the English term CSR is used, even among Swedish authorities and companies since CSR at first were related to multinational companies.

EU definition of Corporate Social Responsibility: "A concept whereby companies to integrate social and environmental considerations into their activities and in their interaction with stakeholders beyond what the law requires."

Often CSR is split into various parts such as environmental, economic, social and ethical issues. Environmental considerations addresses how the company can reduce its environmental impact by taking the environment into consideration when doing business, use green transportation, reduce energy and resource consumption in their production and so on.

Economic aspect might include that the company has proper accounting area, how the company will prevent financial crime, corruption, bribery and so on. It can also be about what policies the company has in terms of pay and compensation to board members. Something else that is also becoming more common is responsible investments, Social Responsible Investments. SRI, includes making sure to place the company's investments in companies that work extensively with CSR. Following demands from both investors and consumers an increasing numbers of companies have made reports about their CSR work in a so called sustainability report or a CSR report. Since 2008, it is also required that all public organizations annually make an open sustainability report.

The social and ethical responsibility is about community involvement, working conditions and human rights. For example, the company allows its employees to be volunteers in a social project during working hours, or that they sponsor and work with various voluntary organizations. But mostly the social aspect is dealt with, especially in the textile industry, the company should promote human rights and fair working conditions for its suppliers, often located in developing countries. This in turn has led many importing companies to develop so-called Code of Conduct with requirements for working conditions.