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mostly provide overviews and information on how an enterprise can implement CSR
by itself (for an overview cf. European Commission 2008: 5, also cf. Honen & Potts
2007, World Bank. 2008, for Austria eg. Respact Austria 2007, Österreichisches
Normungsinstitut 2004).
Quality Labels and – Seals
In the first quality labels and - seals serve as visibility-signals. A special mark signals
that a product fulfils previously defined quality requirements or testing criteria. They
also advise the customers that enterprises comply with defined quality standards (as
to social and/or ecological preconditions of production). By this means quality seals
and labels aim at influencing customers’ buying decisions (e.g. the Fair Trade Label,
Fairtrade 2009). If a label or seal is officially accredited, it equals a certification, too.
For example, accredited Austrian quality seals are registered trade marks awarded to
organizations and companies that have been tested on the basis of a certified quality
standard and have been checked by an independent, accredited body. They are
granted on the basis of the Quality Label Regulation by the Austrian Federal
Ministry for Economic Affairs and Labor. “Quality” refers to the characteristics of a
product exceeding “normal” expectations (“state of the art”, ÖQA 2007: 5).
Accordingly CSR is a quality feature of a product or – as an innovation with the CSR
Quality Seal – of an enterprise.
Basics of the BLISS Approach
The Business guideLines Inducing Social Sustainability BLISS (Seebacher et al.
2005) rest upon a bottom-up approach which requires both active commitment of the
enterprise’s management and active involvement of all employees. This is an
essential discrepancy to other guidelines. As a comprehensive approach for
implementing CSR throughout the enterprise BLISS considers all aspects inside and
outside the enterprise, though the ecological aspects are not central to the
concept.The goal of BLISS is to give practical guidance as to integrating social
responsibility into strategic and operative management of an Austrian SME. Starting
from the SME’s actual conditions and requirements the guidelines help the enterprise
to analyze its previous social responsibility, to identify opportunities for improving
their corporate performance and to estimate the chance of success of alternative CSR
measures.
BLISS was derived from a concept called “Social Analysis of Enterprises” which
had been developed by project partner “alpha nova” to foster the analysis of intraenterprise
social performance. BLISS is more comprehensive and involves the
responsibility of the enterprise within the region and towards society. BLISS is also
attached to well-proven management concepts like EFQM (2004) and evaluation
indices like GRI (GRI G2, Global Reporting Initiative 2002). Thus it can be adapted
to the enterprise’s situation to ensure implementation of CSR on a sustained basis.