CSR into practice – The CSR plan

You now have a better idea of what is CSR, with some references that can help you in determining the areas of action inside your company. In this new section, we will see how to bring this information to your ground context, and how to adapt and apply all this to your company reality. This has to be done through a CSR plan. Let’s see step by step how to create such a plan.

Source: Image developed by MEUS[1]

STEP 1: Analysis of the current situation

As in any strategic plan, having a good initial photo to understand where we are starting from is what will help us define where we want to go.

In this sense, we will analyze what actions have been taken in the past, what concerns there are, what is the level of impact of our activity as a company concerning society and the environment, what is the competition doing, or companies that are a benchmark in the sector, etc. All of this will place us in a strategic context through which we can begin to build.

STEP 2: Drafting a code of ethics

Once we have the X-ray of the situation from which the company starts, the next step is to draft a code of conduct in which the philosophy and social and environmental values ​​of the company will be defined and how it intends to contribute to its improvement in the short-term, medium- and long-term. Since the code of conduct will apply to the entire company, it is necessary that in its preparation all the points of view of the interested parties are taken into account, that is, both the members of the company and the rest of its stakeholders.

STEP 3: Goal setting:

The next step is to identify, define and fix the objectives of a corporate social responsibility plan; These objectives must cover the short-, medium-, and long-term and take into account all the interest groups related to the company, from its employees, managers, and shareholders, to its customers and suppliers, including also local and national administrations.

STEP 4: Definition and implementation of an action plan:

With the objectives defined in the previous point, we will outline the set of actions that will be carried out to achieve these objectives. There will be different dimensions of the action plan depending on the stakeholder groups that we focus on for the CSR strategy and each of them may have its specific weight. For example, there may be companies that put a lot of focus on implementing actions focused on their employees, others that focus on improving and reversing part of their benefits in the social environment in which they carry out their activity, or also others for which the environment be your top priority.

STEP 5: Selection of indicators

Relating the objectives together with the action plan, we will define a set of indicators (KPIs) that will help us monitor that we are on the right path.

STEP 6: External and internal communication

To achieve the benefits that we mentioned at the beginning, it is necessary to work hard on communication, both internally, to get the staff involved in the project, as well as external communication, which is what will make us reach our clients and society in general. Within this point, it is vitally important to prepare an annual CSR Report in which we will collect all the actions and it will be a fantastic tool to publicize everything we do. However, take care about the accuracy of the information given, to protect yourself from greenwashing providing misleading messages!

STEP 7: Measure the impact of your actions

Each action in your plan will have a specific objective defined and associated monitoring indicators. If there is no single formula or methodology that allows you to measure the benefit of your actions, you can measure whether they fulfill what was expected.

[1] Link to edit the graph: https://www.canva.com/design/DAFCKL6ScAs/NTpENnzWUX5OEdYOdcjx0w/edit?utm_content=DAFCKL6ScAs&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton