What is Corporate Social Responsibility? - InnoTrain CSR

Step 1 – Making a decision on what the company stands for
Step 2 – Gathering relevant information
Step 3 – Setting goals
Step 4 – Implementing measures
Step 5 – Reviewing results and communicating the engagement
Step 1 – What should CSR stand for in the company?
The daily business routine usually leaves little room for answering general questions
about strategic corporate planning, especially in small enterprises in which a single
person is in charge of handling all the requirements alone. This has a negative
impact on questions concerning the company's core competencies and competitive
advantages. To integrate CSR specifically into the core business, it makes sense to
check in a first step which personal, corporate, ecological and social values are to be
used strategically in the company and can be implemented into the operations.
Step 2 – Gathering CSR-relevant information
Necessary adjustments and innovation potentials for companies emerge in
connection with the "pulse of time". The introduction of CSR is based on a
comprehensive analysis of internal and external fields of action in the following areas
A) Company/employees, B) Market, C) Environment and D) Society. The gathering of
information about CSR-related aspects in the company's sphere of action can have a
positive impact on the corporate development and in guaranteeing the future.
In order to be able to collect the information systematically and use it as basis for a
dialog, the second step of the CSR implementation consists in the analysis of the
company's stakeholders. Company owners depend on the integration into networks.
A fundamentally fair interaction with stakeholders is normally a requirement for the
business success. On this basis, the existing stakeholder contact within the own
network can be expanded by CSR-relevant aspects and contact persons. In addition,
identifying stakeholder topics and trends can be used to communicate with the own
environment in an image-promoting way.
Step 3 – Setting CSR goals
The goals for switching the direction toward CSR should also be based on the
strengths in the company, without loosing sight of the minimisation of weaknesses. In
simplified terms, linking the most important corporate goals with CSR aspects can be
divided into the following questions:
A) Which values is the company currently promoting? How can these values be
strengthened?
The project "InnoTrain CSR" is organized by GILDE GmbH and has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the
views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. 12/2010
,
InnoTrain CSR
www.csr-training.eu