Corporate Social Responsibility

CSR is the continuing commitment by businesses to behave ethically and contribute to economic development, while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as of the local community and society at large.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) refers to companies taking responsibility for their impact on society. As evidence suggests, CSR is increasingly important to the competitiveness of enterprises. It can bring benefits in terms of risk management, cost savings, access to capital, customer relationships, human resource management, and innovation capacity.

Over the last years an increasing number of companies worldwide started promoting their business through Corporate Social Responsibility strategies because the customers, the public and the investors expect them to act sustainable as well as responsible.

In some cases, CSR is a result of a variety of social, environmental and economic pressures while some other cases many large corporations, it is primarily a strategy to divert attention away from the negative social and environmental impacts of their lives. It enables the company to leverage its products, employee strength, networks and profits and up to some extent to create a sustainable change for marginalized communities. Despite certain criticisms on the CSR activities, more and more companies in the world are inclined towards corporate social responsibility.

The CSR Executives have the task of reconciling the various programs, quantifying their benefits, or at least sketching a logical connection to the business, and securing the support of business line counterparts. CSR can not only refer to the compliance of human right standards, labor and social security arrangements, but also to the fight against climate change, sustainable management of natural resources and consumer protection.

The various practices followed by the corporate in different parts of the world differ significantly. In the Developed nations, the basic needs of the population do not need so much support as in the under-developed nations. The demographies, literacy rate, poverty ratio and GDP of the country have significant role in determining the directions of CSR initiatives of an organization. In the Asian context, CSR mostly involves activities like adopting villages for holistic development, in which they provide medical and sanitation facilities, build school and houses, and helping villages become self-reliant by teaching them vocational and business skills. This Conference is designed to understand and deal with the unprecedented impacts of CSR on the working population, society and environment and therefore to elaborate the various frameworks for it with a view towards developing its practice in an evolutionary way.

Now a days Enterprises are encouraged that they "should have a place in process to integrate social, environmental, ethical human rights and consumer concerns into their business operations and core strategy in close collaboration with their stakeholders".

The Enterprise CSR agenda for action should be :1. To enhance the visibility of CSR and disseminating good practices.2. To improve and tracking levels of trust in business.3. To improve self- and co-regulation processes.4. To enhance market reward for CSR.5. To improve company disclosure of social and environmental information.6. To further integrate CSR into education, training and research.7. To emphasize the importance of national and sub-national CSR policies.8. To align global approaches to CSR.Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is committed to Sustainable Development (SD) through a balanced approach which helps in economic development, social progress and responsible environmental management. CSRs commitment to SD is reaffirmed through organizations Vision and Values, Mission, Code of Ethics, and also its policies and practices related to occupational health and wellness, safety, security, protection of the environment, fair business practices, and its Code of Business Conduct.Social Development through:1. Encouraging freedom of association and collective bargaining by employees

2. Eliminating discrimination with respect to employment and occupation

3. Not supporting or condoning forced or child labor

4. Undertaking employment, skills transfer and training of local workforce

5. Establishing and maintaining partnerships with local organizations and global institutions acting in the social area (housing, health, diseases, hunger etc.)

6. Investing or taking part in projects with social goals benefiting to local communities

7. Maintaining fair operating practices

8. Establishing clear and transparent organizational governance

9. Actively working against corruption whenever it may be observed.

10. Encouraging development, diffusion and use of environmentally friendly technology

11. Developing and maintaining open and constructive relationship with environmental groups, institutions, agencies, customers, communities and employees in the countries of its activities.

These days Companies expect that the involvement and commitment of all staff and management to support and promote Sustainable Development and Corporate Social Responsibility is required and everyone in the organization should work actively.