What is CSR in business?

CSR, or corporate social responsibility, refers to an organisation taking account of the social, environmental and economic impacts of its activity. A company that commits to it begins by identifying the expectations of its stakeholders, before building an assessment and then a strategy that it implements with them and reports on.

What CSR in business covers

A related reading draws on the ESG criteria, environmental, social and governance, which measure how an organisation manages its impacts on these three fronts. This closeness explains the frequent confusion with sustainable development: the two notions largely overlap, with CSR also covering the social and societal aspects of an organisation, whereas sustainable development places more emphasis on the environment. Careers in CSR and sustainable development spell out this nuance.

Building an approach starts with identifying its stakeholders: the audiences and players who can act on the organisation or be affected by it. Even before taking action, getting to know them makes it possible to see which expectations to take into account first.

The subject does not concern only large companies: all sectors of activity and all organisations are concerned. The reference in this area remains the ISO 26000 standard, to which the Institute of Societal Responsibility through Innovation (IRSI) at Excelia contributed.

How a company puts its CSR approach into practice

A CSR approach is built in four stages: carrying out an assessment, defining a policy and a strategy, implementing it with the stakeholders, then communicating on the approach and its results. Each stage builds on the previous one, which is why skipping the assessment weakens everything else.

The assessment is a stocktake: it relies on an analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Its results feed CSR performance indicators and a roadmap that prioritises the issues specific to each stakeholder. The training on conducting a CSR assessment of an organisation, at the Executive Education Centre of Excelia Business School, falls directly within this stage.

Once the strategy is set, several levers make it possible to turn it into concrete actions:

  • the circular economy
  • business ethics
  • responsible purchasing
  • sustainable governance
  • social impact measurement
  • the carbon footprint
  • the employer brand
  • team training

The approach also takes account of a changing regulatory framework, which means updating it regularly rather than fixing it in place. Finally, it is measured through non-financial reporting, which documents the organisation's real social and environmental impacts with verifiable indicators: the CSR officer career details how this is steered on a day-to-day basis.

Why companies commit to a CSR approach

Good CSR communication showcases an approach, it does not replace it: a genuine commitment is verified by indicators, not by a speech.

When a bank reviews a funding request, it now also looks at how the company manages its social and environmental risks. CSR also feeds the employer brand, through the recruitment and retention of teams.

CSR has thus become a management career in its own right: being cross-cutting, it touches marketing, human resources and the supply chain.

The MSc in Sustainable Development and CSR Strategies at Excelia Business School trains you in developing CSR strategies, steering sustainable projects and non-financial reporting, three skills that directly echo the approach described above. Whether you are still studying or already in a job, an adviser can help you identify the training best suited to your situation. During your studies, the Humacité© and Climacité© schemes also make it possible, depending on the programme you follow, to confront these issues with real-life situations.