What do sustainability and CSR mean?
Sustainability and CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) are closely linked and are sometimes used synonymously.
Sustainability describes a theoretical concept based on the three pillars of economy, ecology and society. These three dimensions are mutually dependent and enable sustainable development through simultaneous and equal implementation. Internationally, they are also referred to as the “triple bottom line”.
Corporate Social Responsibility means the social responsibility of companies in the sense of sustainable economic activity that goes beyond the legal requirements – i.e. it describes a voluntary contribution to sustainable development. CSR is often also referred to as corporate social responsibility or corporate social responsibility and includes economic (the actual business activity on the market), ecological (environment) and social (relations with employees and relevant stakeholders) aspects.
With the publication of ISO 26000 as a guide to social responsibility and sustainability for organizations, CSR was standardized for the first time and made accessible to a wide audience. The international standard is a voluntarily applicable standard for the implementation of corporate social responsibility for all types of organizations, with the aim of supporting them in fulfilling their social responsibility. However, ISO 26000 is not a standardized management system.
Why sustainability and CSR?
Corporate responsibility is not only demanded by society, but also by the public, employees or even customers. This results in the following advantages:
- Cost reduction and efficiency increase through optimization approaches, for example by reducing energy consumption.
- Better products, as these are considered and optimized over the entire life cycle
- More innovations, as CSR stimulates new ideas
- Future security and competitive advantages through transparency and increased credibility
- More positive working atmosphere, which has an impact on employees
- Easier employee recruitment due to increased transparency and communication
- Legal certainty due to EU Directive 2013/34/EU on mandatory declaration of non-financial targets for companies with 500 or more employees
Our services at a glance
- Support for the introduction of CSR based on the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the German Sustainability Code and the UN Global Compact
- Further development of existing systems
- Product and process optimization with regard to sustainability criteria
- Process analyses
- Labeling and marking
- Materiality analyses
- Stakeholder surveys
- Social marketing campaigns
- Key figure management
- Other services in the field of sustainability
- Together with our partners:
- Sustainability reporting
- Layout and design