Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) refers to companies taking responsibility for their impact on society, environment on social welfare. 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.

Corporate citizenship

The term generally applies to company efforts that go beyond what may be required by regulators or environmental protection groups. Corporate Social Responsibility may also be referred to as "corporate citizenship" and can involve incurring short-term costs that do not provide an immediate financial benefit to the company, but instead promote positive social and environmental change.

CSR as part of Corporate Governance Code

CSR is also part of the Dutch Corporate Governance Code: as corporate governance is basically a set of principles to regulate the manner in which the Executive Board and the Supervisory Board should take account of the interests of the various stakeholders, including corporate social responsibility issues that are relevant to the enterprise.

CSR and Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) (see: www.globalreporting.org) is a leading organisation in the corporate social responsibility or sustainability field. GRI promotes the use of sustainability reporting as a way for organisations to become more sustainable and contribute to sustainable development.

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