Services

Creating the appropriate answers for ESG ratings and questionnaires, setting up ESG compliance structures and finally also ESG reporting features.

During the last few years the term ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) has become more and more prominente, mainly pushed by the investment community as criteria for evaluating companies on their Social Responsibility performance. Companies are reacting to this by establishing the necessary tools within their organisation so to be able to comply with expectations that investors and other stakeholders might have in this direction.

CSR Company International supports companies in all industries, sectors and geographical regions to set up professional ESG structures, to evaluate which issues need to be covered, how to set up proper data collection systems, how to have the right answers for the manyfold ESG questionnaires and evaluation exercises and how to proactively report their ESG performance to attract potential investments. With legal requirements coming up on reduction of CO2 emissions, on Human Rights Due Diligence, Whistleblower Hotlines and Supply Chain Management having a functioning ESG system in place is a business must. We have implemented such systems in numerous companies from very different sectors and these companies were able to attract additional investments or comply with requirements set by their financial partners. 

We actively engage with our clients in formulating Corporate Social Responsibility Strategies and policies related to sustainability, CSR reporting, anti bribery and anti corruption issues and align these with existing values, taking into account their specific needs and objectives and enable them to grasp the competitive advantage that CSR can provide for their business goals.

Different companies may face different stages of awareness on CSR. This, together with the particularities of their business will determine the content of the strategy: some may decide to adopt a "minimum necessary" stance while others may engage in strategic priorities into particular areas. Nevertheless, a good CSR strategy:

• Sets the overall direction for where the firm wishes to go in its CSR work
• Determines specific priority areas
• Establishes immediate next steps.

Learn from the Chair - Implementation of ISO 26000 and implement the CSR Standard with the best possible support. ISO 26000 allows you to implement a world wide accepted CSR tool that will boost your international business or make you a looked after supplier for international clients.

ISO 26000 is the major document on Social Responsibility currently in the world. We are uniquely positioned to support you in your efforts to integrate it into your business as we are an active part of the leadership within ISO while developing this standard and now in the process of reviewing and evaluating it. Our CEO is responsible for the chapters 5 and 7 of the standard which deal with the HOW do you do it. How do you get started, how do you identify which are the core subjects you need to deal with first, which are the key isues relevant for your business, how can you interact with your stakeholders in a meaningful way and how do you put all of this into your core business strategy and day to day operations.

Many companies use ISO 26000, but it is a big document with many pages and covering all the aspects of social responsibility for any kind of organisation. To filter out what is relevant for your business, what actions to take and how to make it happen that is our know-how and your benefit in working with us. We also support you in the communication of these issues, internally and externally, with stakeholders and interested parties.

We even support you in getting yourself verified on Social Responsibility, to have a third party looking into what you have done and get verification following the guidance of ISO 26000, clause 7.6., "Enhancing the credibility of CSR claims". Further we help you implement the Austrian Standard ONR 192500, which is a certifiable standard on Social Responsibility and based on ISO 26000. We either prepare you for this and suggest you to use certification companies or specialized stakeholders to then do the third party audit or if you have prepared yourself accordingly, we will audit your implementation process.

CSR Company International is one of the few acknowledged bodies to support companies in implementing an efficient and comprehensive Compliance Management System or, in case a company has done these steps already and feels fit for certification, conducts professional audits based on experiences from multiple industries and countries and certifies its successful implementation. Together with Austrian Standards Plus Ltd. as internationally accredited body, we have audited companies so diverse as the City of Vienna Waste Management, the Casinos Austria, Porr Construction Company and many more.

Effective compliance management promotes law-abiding behavious and reduces risks in regards to fines or liabilities of the organisation. It helps prevent individual wrong doings and therefor supports the bottom line. A certificate also creates confidence in your organisation with your business partners and those to be.

Certification offers competitive advantages in the national and international markets. It protects and safeguards the reputation of your organisation. It can reduce the risk of illegal activities.

Our certificate stands for highest legal expertise and profound experience in compliance, neutrality and impartiality. Certification provides continuous proof of a effective compliance management system.

What do the Olympic Games in London 2012, the Balelec International Music festival in Lausanne and the Eurovision Song Contest have in common? They all use ISO 20121 to create a sustainable event that reduces the impact on the environment, makes the time people spend at the event as comfortable as possible and reduces the risk of the community living there opposing the event. At the same time it helps reduce costs for the organisers and gives credibility in the permitting process.

CSR Company International supports companies, event organisers, governments in creating such sustainable events by using this certifiable management system standard from the planning phase down to the execution of the event. And it does not have to be of the size of Olympic Games, it could be a simple company employee outing, a product promotion event or an office opening party. We support you in achieving this standard for your event and thereby supporting your reputation, your market positioning and your risk management.

Ask us for more details and our long list of references from international mega sports events to local jazz festivals, company presentations, volunteering events, product launches to school outings.

Picture a world where every product and appliance is environmentally friendly, where every supermarket item is fair trade, where corruption is an urban myth and poverty a long-distant memory. Hard to imagine? Technically, it is possible… if everyone adhered to sustainable procurement.

Every purchasing decision we make has an impact on the environment, economy and society, from the energy we use to power our computers to the conditions of the workers who made our clothes. What an organization purchases and who it purchases from can have far-reaching implications, not only on the supply chain and the end consumer, but on the wider community, affected by the different segments of that supply chain. 

But what if we stopped to consider the effects of our purchasing decisions? If public- and private-­sector organizations took the time to ensure their purchasing reflects broader goals linked to resource efficiency, climate change, social responsibility and economic resilience, we could surely expect to reduce poverty, improve human rights and mitigate our negative impacts on the environment.

The fancy name for this is sustainable procurement, and it means making sure that the products and services we buy achieve value for money with the lowest environmental impact and most positive social results. This is done by considering the environmental, social and economic effects of our purchasing decisions.

Procurement makes up a large part of any organization’s budget. In the public sector alone, it accounts for around 12 % of GDP and 29 % of government expenditure in the member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). With such figures to contend with, the procurement profession needs to raise its game like never before – and the new ISO 20400 on sustainable procurement can help it do just that.

For the greater good

Inspired by the concept of buying for a better world, many governments and businesses have already embedded sustainable procurement programmes in their day-to-day activities. These contribute directly to the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development which includes targets to promote sustainability in private- and public-sector procurement.

Sharing the load

Consumers are also raising their expectations in terms of environmental responsibility and ethical practice, increasingly calling for more sustainable products made from locally sourced materials. For a company to ignore these factors is to risk losing reputation and business. 

The act of making sure that each organization and each stage in the supply chain meet certain sustainability targets – plays a vital role in driving change on a broader scale.  For the consumer, this can help build a clearer picture of sustainability, and ensure that the onus of sustainable consumption is not placed solely in their hands.

Sustainable procurement also helps build consumer trust in a brand and in the products and services it sells. In time, this can spur demand for further action and even encourage consumers to take action themselves. Because consumers, too, have a responsibility to understand the consequences of their consumption.

For in truth, a company can only really ask a consumer to make a sustainable consumption choice, when it is making sustainable choices itself.

The standard approach

Government, corporate and societal demand for sustainability has grown to the point that it is becoming a core objective for many organizations around the world. While most organizations rely heavily on their supply chains to deliver sustainable products, convincing suppliers and partners to comply with new constraints and to change their culture and practices is nothing short of a challenge. Enter ISO 20400, Sustainable procurement, the world’s first International Standard from ISO to provide guidance on delivering sustainability objectives through the supply chain. By dissecting how sustainability impacts the different aspects of the procurement activity – such as policy, strategy, organization and process – it aims to help companies make better purchasing choices through the implementation of sustainable procurement processes.

Many would correctly point out that sustainability should always have been part of a good procurement strategy. So what does ISO 20400 bring to the table that we didn’t already know? To begin with, the standard does not purport to hand out a “one size fits all” solution, but provides frameworks and management tools that can be applied by all organizations, regardless of sector, size and location. As a matter of fact, the standard is for anybody who contributes to procurement decisions or deals with suppliers. In some organizations, this can include a large number of people who may work in different departments in different countries and across different time zones.

Combining the strengths of sustainable strategy, risk management and more “traditional” procurement, ISO 20400 highlights the pivotal role a supply chain plays between managing sustainability risks and capitalizing on sustainability opportunities. In its section on fundamentals, it discusses the key principles of sustainable procurement, including accountability, transparency, respect for human rights and ethical behaviour, and their vital importance to organizational success. But the standard also uses the core subjects of social sustainability, taken from ISO 26000, Guidance on social responsibility, to help organizations embed their corporate social responsibility strategy throughout the supply chain by applying procurement processes and expertise.

Just as its social responsibility counterpart, ISO 20400 is a guidance standard rather than a certification standard. This means companies cannot be certified for compliance. Instead, the aim is to provide a benchmark for responsible procurement that meets global consensus and has worldwide recognition. And while it doesn’t replace legislation, the standard does provide a baseline for the effective integration of sustainability concerns into the procurement activity and supply chains. 

Value in consistency

For a growing number of companies striving for sustainable operation, the new ISO 20400 offers the key to fine-tuning their sustainability achievements and goals. By using the right procurement techniques, organizations can now introduce sustainability principles into their procurement process in a way that delivers value for money. The standard can also help them get ahead of current and future regulatory requirements.

Released early 2017, ISO 20400 is already stirring interest, with companies of all sizes hurrying to implement its good practice. For example, at the official London launch of the standard’s national adoption, BS ISO 20400:2017, developed by BSI, the ISO member for the United Kingdom, leading UK contractor Balfour Beatty was announced as being one of the first to complete the ISO 20400 assessment.

The value of this consistency is often underestimated, but a common understanding of sustainable procurement means organizations worldwide can tread a common path towards higher levels of sustainability. Private and public procurement can go a long way to healing the world of its environmental woes, unethical labour practices and endemic corruption. Even if just a small number of organizations follow the guidance in ISO 20400, the effect through the supply chain would be exponential and make a difference to the world we live in.

Business Case

ISO 20400  Building the Business Case for Sustainable Procurement in Australia 2019

ISO 37001 is a new standard that deals with Anti-Bribery. It is a classical management system standard and therefor can also be certified in the known way. CSR Company International has been on the forefront of its development and therefor has insight knowledge on the standard. Furthermore we have already experience in its implementation with a number of clients globally.

CSR Company International is also one of the first, if not the first globally to be accredited to conduct audits on ISO 37001 and issue valid certificates. We are very proud of this achievement, recognizing that fighting corruption is a key tool for companies and societies to develop.

Key clients are companies and public authorities who want to demonstrate that their business conduct is free of corruption and they have taken all necessary steps to counter any of this conduct within their organisation and with their stakeholders. This standard allows them also to show to the broad public, to media, to stakeholders and customers that the organisation takes the issue serious and is prepared to have an independent third party control the taken measures for their efficiency. 

We advise and assist our clients to measure the effectiveness of their CSR strategy and CSR programs. The progress towards the CSR targets they set by developing a set of relevant Key Performance Indicators (KPI‘s) needs to be evaluated by tracking them down in a systematic way.

Although the CSR KPI's will differ depending on the organization and on their ties with the strategy or the programs they are, in all instances, quantifiable financial and non financial measures. Usually they are agreed upon right after the CSR strategy objectives and programs are defined.

Their business relevance increases the more they reflect organization's CSR goals and the more they are specific to the CSR program goals they measure. Strong, strategic KPI's are usually long-term considerations, related to the CSR strategy. For such KPI's, the definition of what they are and how they are measured do not change often. CSR programs' effectiveness is also measured through KPI's with a shorter time period, their existence ending once the project ends too.

Developing a list of KPIs is not difficult, but selecting the relevant ones and using them in an organizationally specific context can be challenging. We expect that KPI's offer us an objective, uniform and rigorous picture of the reality of the business.

To serve this purpose we offer profound expertise.

The CSR Company offers corporate social responsibility audits, as 3rd party,  which ensures an independent and objective process and outcome. We conduct supplier audits on social responsibility for several companies worldwide. This might be according to the company´s own Supplier Policy, or according to UN- Global Compact, ISO 26000, SA8000, BSCI and many others.

Undergoing the audit, our clients will get important information, instrumental in fine tuning their social responsibility policies, in the strategic piloting and control of social, environmental and governance risks and also in enhancing the social responsibility relevance of the operational objectives of their organizations and also of their managerial choices:

By hiring us to conduct the audit, our clients will profit from our expertise in audit methodology and profound ISO 26000 & CSR expertise, plus a long list of references in different countries, reaching from all over Europe, Asia and Africa to Latin America. On request we can provide a list of companies and personal references from our clients. We have audited in the textile industry, shoe industry, garment industry, food industry, machine industry, oil & gas industry, telecom industry, banking & insurance industry, entertainment industry, furniture industry and several more. 

The course will give an in depth insight into ISO 26000, its history, structure and content, based on real life examples and practical applications. The participants will be able to understand the meaning of standard, the content and its practical application. The course helps practitioners to either implement the standard into any kind of organisation including its proper communication or to evaluate the status of implementation in an organisation as third party auditor.

The course also provides basic skills on how to prepare an audit, how to conduct it, how to identify gaps and non-conformities and how to write an audit report and also teaches the ethics of good auditing – explaining in which cases there is a conflict of interest and how impartial the auditor has to be.