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Last update:
26/09/2007

Corporate social responsibility >>Presentation

The definition of corporate social responsibility may have several senses; however, all of them coincide in the fact that it is an approach based on a comprehensive group of policies, practices and programmes guided by the respect to ethics, individuals, communities and the environment.

It is employed to describe a variety of initiatives of an economic, social and environmental nature taken by companies that do not exclusively stem from legal requirements but are mostly voluntary in nature.

Corporate social responsibility is not something new; however, it is one of the issues that is catching most attention nowadays in the entrepreneurial sector as well as in the rest of the society.

During the last few years, several initiatives have been set up worldwide. They have bolstered the inclusion of Social Responsibility within business strategies. Various institutions and organisations have developed initiatives to promote and enhance socially responsible behaviour of enterprises. These initiatives or projects usually have a series of regulations or recommendations that add the commitment of member states to promote their development in the business world of their countries.

>> Presentation

>> Global Compact on social responsibility

>> Documents
- Cinterfor/ILO
- ILO
- Other publications

>> Links

These global projects also seek to standardise principles, performances and measurement of social responsibility so that the work of enterprises in this field can be acknowledged not only in the enterprise's close circle but also at an international level.

One of these initiatives has been the development of an International Standard for social responsibility by ISO, with the aim of producing a "document that serves as a guide, that is written in simple language and that is practical and easy to understand by non-specialists". It is not planned to be used with certification purposes.

In this section, a number of previously selected documents are introduced together with a list of links to sites of interest.