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New European policy

In October 2011 the European Commission published a new policy on

corporate social responsibility [137 KB] .

It states that to fully meet their social responsibility, enterprises shouldhave in place a process to integrate social, environmental, ethical andhuman rights concerns into their business operations and core strategy inclose collaboration with their stakeholders.

The aim is both to enhance positive impacts for example through theinnovation of new products and services that are beneficial to society andenterprises themselves and to minimise and prevent negative impacts.

The new policy puts forward an action agenda for the period2011-2014 covering 8 areas:

Enhancing the visibility of CSR and disseminating good practices:

this includes the creation of a European award, and the establishment of

sector-based platforms for enterprises and stakeholders to makecommitments and jointly monitor progress.

Improving and tracking levels of trust in business: the Commission

will launch a public debate on the role and potential of enterprises, andorganise surveys on citizen trust in business.

Improving self- and co-regulation processes: the Commissionproposes to develop a short protocol to guide the development of futureself- and co-regulation initiatives.

Enhancing market reward for CSR: this means leveraging EU

policies in the fields of consumption, investment and public procurementin order to promote market reward for responsible business conduct.

Improving company disclosure of social and environmental

information: the new policy confirms the Commissions intention to bringforward a new legislative proposal on this issue.

Further integrating CSR into education, training and research: the

Commission will provide further support for education and training in thefield of CSR, and explore opportunities for funding more research.

Emphasising the importance of national and sub-national CSR

policies: the Commission invites EU Member States to present or updatetheir own plans for the promotion of CSR by mid 2012.

Better aligning European and global approaches to CSR:

the Commission highlights the OECD Guidelines for

Multinational Enterprises,

the 10 principles of the UN Global Compact,

http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sustainable-business/files/csr/new-csr/act_en.pdfhttp://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sustainable-business/files/csr/new-csr/act_en.pdfhttp://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sustainable-business/files/csr/new-csr/act_fr.pdfhttp://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sustainable-business/files/csr/new-csr/act_de.pdfhttp://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sustainable-business/files/csr/new-csr/act_en.pdfhttp://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sustainable-business/files/csr/new-csr/act_en.pdf

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the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights,

the ILO Tri-partite Declaration of Principles on Multinational

Enterprises and Social Policy,

the ISO 26000 Guidance Standard on Social Responsibility.

A report on the implementation of this action agenda should be published

in time for a review meeting scheduled for mid 2014.