There is little to no evidence that companies are being selective over certain aspects of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) on the basis that it is not relevant to their industry, according to the findings of the newest Procurement Leaders executive report, Benchmarking CSR Scope and Standards.
On the contrary, companies recognise that they need to take responsibility for every aspect of their supply chain, and as such, they address a broad set of CSR aspects in their policy, ranging from human rights aspects to sustainable resource use, community involvement and fair competition actions.
The issue with this approach, the report shows, is that it just scratches the surface of CSR. Overall, CSR is still in its infancy, and companies struggle to fully embed the concept into their business-as-usual.
Still, some industries have made noticeable progress by developing pockets of CSR excellence – including food and beverage and mining – and they have done so predominantly because of the sense of urgency they face. These industries are addressing CSR in greater depth, and have rigorous procurement processes in place, such as collecting and measuring supplier performance data.
While it is unrealistic for average performers, let alone leaders, to catch up with the trailblazers in the short-term, the expectation is that they still make progress rather sooner than later.
One way of going about it is by prioritising and focusing on those CSR aspects that are most relevant to the organisation first, and then developing processes that gradually enforce CSR performance throughout the supply chain, the research concludes.
Benchmarking CSR Scope and Standards is based on a survey conducted in Q3 2012, reflecting the responses of 296 senior procurement executives and CSR/sustainability officers from around the globe. It used the ISO 26000 listings of core CSR subjects and elements, and measured standards across industries and performance levels.
Members with unrestricted access can download the full report here.
All other users can download the executive summary here.
