Within the above context, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) is supporting the launch of a Regional Network for CSR competence to enhance the environmental and social conditions in SMEs operating in Central, South and Eastern Europe (CEE/SEE Region). The Network will be established to assist local SMEs to conduct business in a socially and environmentally responsible manner, and thereby promote their competitiveness and better alignment with emerging consumer concerns. Furthermore, it will serve as a platform to foster the exchange of experiences and information on best practices and aims to play the role of a catalyst in promoting partnership building between public and private institutions in the field of CSR and to coordinate related activities for SMEs in the region.
To date, CSR has been taken up primarily by larger companies. This has to do on the one hand with their stronger media presence and their high reliance on reputation and brand protection, and on the other hand with the way CSR was promoted and introduced to the business world. Many companies still relate the concept of CSR to large-scale philanthropic investments, donations or sponsorships. However, such ‘large-scale’ initiatives are far beyond reach for most of the smaller companies that are frequently faced with financial, technical or human resource constraints. As a consequence, SMEs generally take a rather skeptical position when it comes to CSR.
There is hence a need to point out that the CSR concept equally works for smaller firms and that it can constitute an excellent business case as well. CSR can be perfectly in line with a firm’s quest for facilitated market access, enhanced productivity or decreasing operational costs. In the end it all comes down to how a company realizes CSR within its own sphere of influence, its individual business operations and processes. |
