Responsible Business: The European Union is Driving Forward the European Strategies on Corporate Social Responsibility

Sustainable development is a great challenge for societies: in times facing a global recession, financial crisis, climate change, and energy crisis it is increasingly important to follow a long-term strategy for further development to reach sustainability. Corporate social responsibility is a concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations and in their interaction with their stakeholders on a voluntary basis. A strategic approach to CSR is increasingly important to the competitiveness of enterprises. It can bring benefits in terms of risk management, cost savings, access to capital, customer relationships, human resource management, and innovation capacity. In this contribution the activities of the European Union on sustainability and corporate social responsibility were analyzed. The results revealed that by renewing efforts to promote CSR, the Commission aims to create conditions favourable to sustainable growth, responsible business behaviour and durable employment generation in the medium and long term. With it’s strategy on CSR the European Commission emphasized the need for the establishment of sector-based platforms for enterprises and stakeholders to make commitments and jointly monitor progress, the improvement and tracking of levels of trust in businesses, the creation of guidelines for the development of future self- and co-regulation initiatives and the improvement of company disclosure of social and environmental information.