New guide to CSR for small and medium businesses

January 13, 2011 Adam Gorley Employee Relations, Human Resources

A business research centre at Cardiff University, Wales, has teamed up with the British arm of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) to release a new guide on corporate social responsibility (CSR) for small and medium-sized businesses, called The ABC of CSR for small and medium enterprises. If you don’t mind the Welsh, and can handle reading “programme” instead of “program”, then you might find this guide offers some valuable lessons.

I’ve mentioned these issues before, but they bear repeating. Consider these benefits of engaging in CSR activities:

Improved image and reputation
Improved trust and understanding
Larger, more prominent profile
Better market position
More business
Increased employee motivation
Increased staff retention and decreased absenteeism
Enhanced ability to recruit and retain staff
Cost savings and increased efficiency
Benefits company culture

The guide’s authors note:

Ultimately CSR is about running your business in a responsible, professional and sustainable way that develops and maintains good relationships with all stakeholders. It is not about extravagant and highly visible programmes. While the size of your business will inevitably create constraints, there is no reason why your commercial success cannot go hand-in-hand with a commitment to social responsibility and environmental sustainability.

Of course, I’m not sure you care about social responsibility, and maybe I keep harping on about it, but like it or not, governments, consumers and even industry associations are coming round to the idea, and that means it might be in your best interest to take a look. The guide contains lots of great material and plentiful examples of things both big and small that any organization can do to improve its CSR profile—and bottom line.

Adam Gorley
First Reference Human Resources and Compliance Editor

In many cases, corporate citizenship is just about good governance, and that’s the message behind Finance & Accounting PolicyPro. FAPP also includes a chapter dedicated to many aspects of environmental management, including environmental protection, hazardous material management, recycling, energy conservation, sustainability and emissions trading.

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Adam Gorley

Editor at First Reference Inc.

Adam Gorley is a copywriter, editor and researcher at First Reference. He contributes regularly to First Reference Talks, Inside Internal Controls and other First Reference publications. He writes about general HR issues, accessibility, privacy, technology in the workplace, accommodation, violence and harassment, internal controls and more. Read more