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Brussels, 18 december 2001
Euro Coop's Comments to the European Commission's Green Paper:
"Promoting a European framework for Corporate Social Responsibility"
COM (2001) 366
Euro Coop is the European Community of Consumer Co-operatives, whose members are the national organisations of consumer co-operatives in 11 of the 15 Member States of the EU and in 4 Central and Eastern European countries. Created in 1957, Euro Coop today represents over 3,200 local or regional co-operatives, membership of which amounts to over 19 million consumers in the EU and 2 million in the associated countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
Euro Coop welcomes the European Commission's Green Paper: "Promoting a European framework for Corporate Social Responsibility" (COM (2001) 366). The issue is of utmost importance and has always been a main priority to consumer co-operatives. It reflects the social, ethical and environmental values on which consumer co-operatives were founded more than one hundred years ago. Co-operatives are values-led businesses based on the seven principles of the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA), including concern for the community.
Corporate social responsibility is not only limited to the relationship between employer and employees but should reflect the way a company behaves beyond its own premises towards its customers and society in general.
Over recent years, Euro Coop's member organisations have taken various initiatives in developing social reporting within their organisations. For example many of the consumer co-operatives who want to contribute to sustainable consumption have developed their ethical policy by a code of conduct. This code of conduct is used when entering agreements with suppliers, both EU and non-EU, to ensure that products and the manner of production meet a number of criteria.
As well, Euro Coop published a report on social reporting in 1999: "Measuring the Co-operative Difference" outlining the various aspects and giving examples of social reporting in the member organisations.
Turning to the questions raised in the Green Paper, Euro Coop has the following comments to make:
Businesses and Corporate Social Responsibility:
Euro Coop agrees that businesses should produce reports on their financial, social and environmental performance.
However, Euro Coop does not believe that European standards should be defined at this stage for two principal reasons:
- The ending of the voluntary principle could discourage businesses from embarking on the process of starting to produce social and environmental reports.
- The current vigorous debate between businesses and their stakeholders about what targets should be set, will come to a complete halt if standards are imposed from above.
At this stage the EU should not be looking to define standards as this is an evolutionary process with emerging standards already appearing, particularly AA1000. Benchmarking and Key Performance Indicators are other useful approaches.
The Role for the EU:
The role for the EU, and for national Governments should be to encourage Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and to enhance transparency by encouraging businesses to report on their combined contribution to economic prosperity, environmental quality and social capital, the so-called "triple bottom line". Initially, the EU should look to raise awareness of social responsibility and should commission research to demonstrate its economic as well as social value. The business case for CSR must be stressed in order to achieve widespread take-up.
The Consumer Aspect:
Euro Coop believes that the Green Paper does not give sufficient emphasis to the interests of consumers, although we recognise that social accountability is a balanced process, which should give fair consideration to all stakeholders. However, there is a lack of consideration of consumer organisations and consumer awareness in the Paper. It is important to raise consumers' awareness of the issue through various sources of information.
Another aspect that should be addressed in the Green Paper is consumer protection. It is important that companies respect consumers' privacy by not making consumer profiles of single consumers.
Evaluation and Effectiveness:
It is vital that external auditing of social and environmental reports should be carried out by a body, which is independent of the business involved, in order to ensure the effectiveness and reliability of CSR policies.
Actions to support Corporate Social Responsibility:
Euro Coop believes it is essential that the European Commission, among others, funds projects in order to promote and support the development of corporate social responsibility on all levels (the enterprise, local, regional, sectoral, national and global). Such funding should support projects in the field of training, dissemination and exchange of information, medium-term social policy analysis and research, and analysis of the role of the legal framework.
Contact: Louise Ousted Olsen, Acting Secretary General
Tel.: 02.285.00.76 - Fax: 02.231.07.57 - e-mail: Lousted_Olsen@eurocoop.org
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