Implement a CSR approach within your company

Nowadays, the protection of the environment is one of the major concerns all over the world. This justifies the fact that more and more companies want to engage in sustainable development issues. To achieve this, these structures implement corporate social responsibility (CSR) actions. This policy has become an essential conduct for the proper functioning and good reputation of these VSEs, SMEs and LEs. But what is a CSR approach? Why and how to implement such a policy within your company?

What is a CSR approach?

CSR is the acronym derived from the expressions corporate social responsibility. According to the European Commission , it refers to a concept by which companies voluntarily integrate environmental and social concerns, both into their various activities and into their relations with various stakeholders. These include your suppliers, your partners and especially your employees. CSR therefore requires the involvement of employees through the design of a trusted review platform for your employees.

A CSR approach is then the set of ethical and sustainable actions that a company carries out in order to achieve sustainable development objectives. It allows companies to evolve and grow in a world that is more respectful of people and the environment. The objective of structures that adopt such an approach is to be economically viable without having any negative impact on society (environment, population, etc.).

Corporate social responsibility or CSR then goes beyond ecological concerns. It concerns all companies, regardless of their size, legal form and sector of activity.

What are the pillars of the CSR approach?

A CSR approach is based on three complementary pillars: the environment, society and the economy.

The social or societal pillar

The social part of the CSR approach is mainly based on social equity as well as respect for human rights and the law related to the world of work. This pillar aims to meet the basic needs of man. These include food, access to education, work, health care, travel and housing.

The social aspect of the CSR approach can be translated into:

• The implementation of QWL: employer brand and employee loyalty;
• The fight against discrimination and exclusion;
• Safety, hygiene, health in the workplace;
• Education and training;
• Ethics and fairness in relations between employees and partners;

Broadly speaking, social responsibility obliges companies to take care of their employees.

The economic pillar

The goal of any company is to make figures. The economic pillar is therefore important in a CSR approach. By making your business more transparent and accountable, you gain productivity, you reduce negative externalities and the management of your savings is optimal. The goal of the economic aspect of the CSR approach is to:

• Guarantee a better quality of service;
• Focus on local producers and suppliers;
• Be transparent with investors;
• Apply fair and equitable rates;
• Meet invoice payment deadlines, etc.

It is also necessary to ensure customer satisfaction and loyalty.

The environmental pillar

The environmental pillar of the CSR approach allows you to measure the impact of your company’s activities on the environment in order to reduce it. With it, you preserve the environment, natural resources and biological diversity while reducing risks and optimizing budgets. This pillar includes actions such as:

• Optimization of waste management and reduction of waste production;
• Achieving the carbon footprint and reducing greenhouse gas emissions ;
• Recycling and eco-production;
• The use of renewable energies;
• Reduction of raw material consumption;
• Education and awareness of employees on environmental issues;
• Responsible use of natural resources (water, gas, oil, etc.), etc.

These three CSR pillars guarantee a balance between economic performance, environmental issues and social concerns. Basically, the CSR approach is an economically responsible and efficient investment, ecologically sustainable and socially equitable.

ISO 26000

In addition to the three CSR pillars mentioned, Corporate Social Responsibility has been governed by the ISO 26000 standard since 2010. The latter allows structures wishing to engage in CSR to establish responsible governance around seven issues:

• Communities and local development;
• Human  rights;
• Working relations and conditions;
• The fairness of practices;
• The environment;
• Consumer issues;
• The governance of the organization.

The Nf ISO 26000 standard contains only guidelines. It gives you a concrete scope for the implementation of your corporate social responsibility or CSR approach.

Why implement a CSR approach in your company?

The implementation of CSR or corporate social responsibility provides many benefits. Here are a few.

CSR reduces costs

One of the main advantages of the CSR approach is cost reduction. Adopting such a policy means reducing the consumption of resources and energy within the company. This approach also makes it possible to limit expenses related to insurance, communication, crisis management, justice, etc.

CSR ensures risk prediction and reduction

The corporate social responsibility approach is also an ideal tool for risk prevention and management. Adopting such a policy helps your company to identify any risks and constraints related to its activity, sector or stakeholders. Thanks to this identification of the weak points of your actions and relationships, you will take all the necessary steps to significantly reduce the various risks.

CSR reduces environmental impact

By adopting the CSR approach, the company becomes aware of the impact of its activities on the environment thanks to the environmental component. This allows it to identify solutions to reduce the consequences in order to protect the environment. In doing so, you can even benefit from subsidies such as those of ADEME if your VSEs or SMEs are located in Paris or in another city in France.

The CSR approach improves the well-being of employees

As mentioned above, the CSR approach allows the prevention and management of various risks related to the company’s activities and its sector. It also guarantees the improvement of working conditions. In addition, the social pillar of the CSR approach implies compliance with health and safety rules, the absence of discrimination, etc. Social responsibility therefore provides the company’s staff with a healthy environment conducive to professional and personal fulfillment. These various conditions promote engagement at work, improved performance and employee loyalty.

CSR improves employer branding to attract talent

Many studies show that most employees are in favour of CSR or companies’ contribution to sustainable development issues. Similarly, many young graduates now want to work in a responsible company with a good CSR policy. Therefore, engaging in a CSR approach is one of the best ideas to improve your employer brand and a good way to meet the requirements of these candidates. With such a policy, you easily attract new talent.

In addition, the implementation of a CSR approach requires taking the opinions of employees. These allow you to:

• Strengthen the trust of your prospects and the loyalty of your customers;
• Analyze your staff’s experience more easily for improvement;
• Valuing your staff in order to retain them;
• Attract the best talent when they are positive;
• Get useful information that will allow you to detect problems within the company and their solutions.

You’ll get both employees who embrace your company’s values and true ambassadors for your brand. The CSR approach can therefore be considered as a competitive advantage. This is why it is increasingly adopted by entrepreneurs who are aware of the challenges of employer branding for a company.

The CSR approach improves the company’s image with customers and partners

It is obvious that the main objective of the CSR approach is not to improve the image of your company. However, this is part of the benefits of this policy. Consumers and business partners give a positive image to any company that demonstrates environmental and social commitment. The same is true for investors wishing to make a socially responsible investment.

You can therefore take advantage of this approach to shape a brand identity and establish or restore a relationship of trust with your customers and business partners. Adopting a CSR approach allows you to stand out from the competition.

How to implement a CSR approach in your company?

Implementing a CSR approach within your company takes place in several stages.

Appoint a CSR manager

To start your CSR and sustainable development project, you must appoint a CSR leader or manager. The latter’s mission will be to ensure the smooth running of the project. Entrust this position to a motivated person who masters the structure and has knowledge of transversal management and diplomacy. They can be a specialist, a person trained for this position or a volunteer among your employees.

Take stock of the situation

The second step in the implementation of your CSR approach is to carry out an inventory. This is to analyze the existing in order to assess your CSR maturity, to identify the weaknesses and strengths of the structure. This allows you to define the objectives of your project and identify the financial and human material resources available to you. This is also the time to determine the CSR actions to be carried out.

Define an action plan

To make your project a reality, you must establish an action plan. The latter must include your environmental and social objectives as well as performance indicators. You should also arrange the actions you listed in the previous step by order of priority and relevance. Everything will depend on your company, your territory, the problems and challenges of your sector of activity.

You must also list the stakeholders (employees, suppliers, service providers, shareholders, investors, etc.) that you involve in the process. You can draw inspiration from examples of corporate CSR on the internet to create your action plan. Do not hesitate to be accompanied by a specialist or to contact the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) for advice. In addition, it is important that you develop the budget to be allocated to the CSR approach.

Engage and build teams

To succeed in your CSR approach, it must be supported by all your employees internally and externally. Therefore, you must involve your staff in each of your CSR actions. It is necessary that you make your teams aware of the impact of the process and explain why they must participate.

Your employees must also undergo training in order to have the necessary knowledge to contribute to the success of the project. In addition, involving your employees in your policy also means consulting them before and after actions. The involvement of employees through employee reviews allows you to take advantage of the interests of the employer brand.

Communicate on CSR actions

Communicating your CSR actions is first and foremost done internally. This communication allows you to engage your employees in the policy and ensure that they apply each measure. It must be accessible to all employees, easy to understand and read.

You must also communicate your values and responsible practices externally to improve your image with prospects, customers and recruitment candidates. Communication can be done using an extra-financial report or CSR reporting that you will publish periodically.

The Global Compact initiative France created in 2000 by then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan requires that this report be produced annually. To succeed in each report, you can refer to the standards of the American NGO Global Reporting Initiative.

Evaluate the results of the CSR approach

The CSR reporting established in the previous step allows you to follow your social responsibility policy. In addition to monitoring, you should regularly analyze the results in order to verify that your CSR approach is working as you want. If this is not the case, a new action plan will have to be created.

To measure the CSR performance of your structure, you must use your performance indicators and ESG criteria. You can conduct an online self-assessment or entrust the task to a CSR expert. You also need to engage with internal and external stakeholders. Employee opinions will therefore be of great use to you for the analysis of the results of your CSR approach.

Based on the weaknesses and strengths identified during the evaluation, you will identify areas for improvement for the success and sustainability of your policy.