The average company will prioritise ’health and safety’ and ’employment and working conditions’ in their contracts, whereas other CSR areas are rarely mentioned in policies, without action being taken.
According to the results of a new Procurement Leaders report, labour practices are closely linked to local regulation and potential litigation. Companies face a great deal of threat if they don’t tackle these two aspects of their CSR programme.
Another key finding of the research highlights that companies take little to no action on those CSR activities which are not directly linked to risk. These include particularly community and development activities.
CSR programmes offer marketing opportunities, but companies have to be careful about how they go about it. They can’t simply advertise what is already expected of them, namely ’health and safety’.
Our assessment is that the true marketing value lies in moving beyond risk mitigation and getting customers’ attention by going the extra mile. But the reality is, that activities such as fair competition and employment creation add value. The report marks this out as a missed marketing opportunity.
The research, which was conducted in Q3 2012, surveyed about 300 senior procurement executives and CSR/sustainability officers from organisations worldwide. This, the second report in a four-part research suite, looks at which CSR areas companies are tackling and to which standard. The CSR areas subject to analysis are based on the internationally-recognised and comprehensive ISO 26000 listings.
Members with unrestricted access can download the full report here.
All other users can download the executive summary here.
