International Institute for Environment and Development 
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| International Institute for Environment and Development |
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Public Sector Roles
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The limits to voluntary corporate social responsibility are framed to a large extent by issues of public governance. Understanding the roles of home and host country governments and public authorities – at national, regional and sub-national levels – in providing the supporting framework for effective CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) is a vital underpinning for CSR globally. The CSR agenda as a whole, particularly in Europe, has tended to be framed by an unhelpful distinction between those who consider that CSR is limited to ‘voluntary’ activities by businesses ‘beyond compliance’, and those who consider the starting point should be broader – based on an understanding of the total impacts of businesses to the societies where they operate. We take the broad view as our starting point. Recent Business & Sustainable Development work on the role of governance for the CSR agenda includes: a round table for bilateral development agencies on CSR (PDF); work for the World Bank’s CSR Practice to map the range of public sector roles in providing an enabling environment for CSR (PDF); and a paper on ‘legal issues in corporate citizenship’ (PDF) prepared for the Swedish Partnership for Global Responsibility. Copyright © 2005 International Institute for Environment and Development. |
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