Responsible Business Week – are you in?

Are you a Responsible Non-Profit or Business?

As part of Responsible Business Week, we are championing that all organisations whether commercial or non-profit should take steps to measure their wider social, economic and environmental impact as part of their everyday operations and business practices. It’s often known as corporate social responsibility (CSR), but it’s not a practice that should be specific to just corporates. The principles apply to any organisation, and those that apply these practices are going to be more successful in the future. Here’s why.

• There is increasing pressure to show transparency and ethics with finances.
• Consumers are interested in purchasing from ethical organisations.
• Non-profit organisations need to match the CSR practices of businesses in order to compete effectively and demonstrate the same level of social impact.
• It helps apply best practice policy and principles as set out by quality kite marks and standards.
• There is increasing emphasis on social value, where you should get more impact for your money than its core purpose. This is championed by the Social Value Act that is considered during procurement processes.

Here’s an example of how a business or organisation can be responsible in its approach. So, imagine a business is tendering for a waste collection contract in Birmingham…

Alongside delivering this service they also promise to:

1. Advertise and undertake job recruitment surgeries within deprived wards in Birmingham with a target to recruit 20% long term unemployed into roles.
2. Create 10 new apprenticeship roles.
3. Recycle processing to support environmental practices.
4. Print waste collection and recycling information in multiple languages to increase uptake of recycling amongst residents in target communities.
5. Deliver education workshops through an employee volunteering scheme in schools about waste and recycling to raise awareness amongst the younger generation
6. Use local or non-profit suppliers in any procurement supply chains.
7. Donate 10% of their profit from the contract into local community environmental projects.

All of these proposed activities align to ethical practices, processes or outcome measurement indicators that can be summarised into one of six different areas as defined by the principles set out by the ISO 26000 quality standard. 

Any organisation can work  towards the IS026000 principles.

Considering social responsible IS026000 principles may help your organisation to decide on:

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• Better processes and practices for delivering and monitoring your service.

• New outcome indicators within your theory of change.

• Including a wider impact CSR statement within your impact framework

• Working towards industry standard certifications to benchmark and validate your best practice.

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For further guidance see the ISO 26000 on Social Responsibility 

This content is a snippet from our online training course in impact measurement. To learn more about best practice in impact management whether you are developing a theory of change or implementing a monitoring system for your CSR department, foundation or non-profit check out our services. 

We offer:

Virtual and face to face training courses on Measuring Impact

Monitoring Systems for Impact Measurement 

 

Responsible Business Week 2017 is a unique, high-profile platform to raise awareness of responsible business. It provides an opportunity for businesses to inspire each other to make a positive impact in society and turn aspiration into action.