What are inner CSR and ESG activities?

The series of training modules is entitled: ‘CSR activities focused on internal environmental actions carried out by a fashion company’, but what is CSR and what is the purpose of this course?

CSR, otherwise known as corporate social responsibility, is a type of sustainable development practice that aims to improve the social, environmental or ethical situation.

Typical CSR initiatives include environmental sustainability, philanthropic responsibility and establishing socially responsible business practices. Therefore, it is working towards a better environment, helping people in difficult situations, opposing social exclusion or promoting access to education.

Building good relations with employees, both on the basis of general values (equality and prohibition of discrimination, protection of employees’ rights, right to privacy and freedom of association) and in the sense of demands arising from the CSR concept, should be a priority for the activities of every enterprise. The concept of social responsibility can be considered in two dimensions: internal (including relations with employees) and external (including relations with the company’s stakeholders: suppliers, customers, competitors). A company’s employees occupy a special place among its internal stakeholders. Companies should continuously improve the competences of their employees in order to respond to the changing expectations of customers, investors and society. This is why corporate social responsibility includes, above all, activities such as ensuring comfortable and safe working conditions, health promotion and stress reduction, so-called work life balance, ethics in relations with employees, proper handling when an employee leaves the company, employee development, talent management, dialogue with employees.

Action guidelines for employees in the CSR concept:

• Comfortable and safe working conditions
• Health promotion and stress reduction
• Work life balance
• Ethics in employee relations
• Employee departure
• Employee development
• Talent management
• Employee dialogue
• Employee volunteering

ESG social criteria examine how it manages relationships with employees, suppliers, customers, and the communities where it operates. Social aspects look at the company’s relationships with internal and external stakeholders. Investors seek companies that promote ethical and socially conscious themes including diversity, inclusion, community-focus, social justice, and corporate ethics, in addition to fighting against racial, gender, and sexual discrimination.

ESG frameworks are important to sustainable investing because they can help individuals or other corporations determine whether the company is in alignment with their values, as well as analyze the ultimate worth of a company for their purposes.

Fashion brands are working hard to ensure their global corporate standards for health, safety, labour rights, sustainability, quality of product, etc. are adhered to and maintained throughout their supply chain. These cover issues such as workplace cooperation, supervisory skills, and empowering women.

Governance in ESG pertains to the governance factors of decision making, from policymaking to the distribution of rights and responsibilities among different participants in corporations, including the board of directors, managers, shareholders, and stakeholders. ESG governance criteria ensure that a company uses accurate and transparent accounting methods and pursues both integrity and diversity in selecting its leadership. Companies in every sector, including apparel, are required to make strong efforts to enhance their performance across all the three ESG measures. Good corporate governance not only improves profitability but also increases a firms’ overall economic performance. The important is transparency and disclosure, various stakeholders expect accountability and transparency about corporate governance.

You will learn about how you can implement an effective CSR and ESG action inside and outside your fashion company in our second course. There you will also learn about the importance of similar actions and what you can gain by implementing similar actions in your company. The remaining modules will give you a better understanding of the need to create such actions, as well as what exactly they can involve.