Overview Of Corporate Social Responsibility

32 Pages 7880 Words

Introduction
A variety of terms are used - sometimes interchangeably - to talk about corporate social responsibility (CSR): business ethics, corporate citizenship, corporate accountability, sustainability. BSR defines corporate social responsibility as “achieving commercial success in ways that honor ethical values and respect people, communities, and the natural environment.” We also say that CSR means addressing the legal, ethical, commercial and other expectations society has for business, and making decisions that fairly balance the claims of all key stakeholders. In its simplest terms it is: “what you do, how you do it, and when and what you say.”
In this sense, CSR is viewed as a comprehensive set of policies, practices and programs that are integrated into business operations, supply chains, and decision-making processes throughout the company - wherever the company does business - and includes responsibility for current and past actions as well as future impacts. The issues that represent a company’s CSR focus vary by business, by size, by sector and even by geographic region. In its broadest categories, CSR typically includes issues related to: business ethics, community investment, environment, governance, human rights, marketplace and workplace. (See other BSR reports on each of these topics).

The field of corporate social responsibility has grown exponentially in the last decade. More companies than ever before are engaged in serious efforts to define and integrate CSR into all aspects of their business, with their experiences being bolstered by a growing body of evidence that CSR has a positive impact on business economic performance. New voluntary CSR standards and performance measurement tools continue to proliferate amidst the ongoing debate about whether and how to formalize legal CSR requirements for companies. Stakeholders - including shareholders, analysts, regulators, activists, labor unions, empl...