Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2013-02-05-Speech-2-428-000"
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"en.20130205.20.2-428-000"2
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"Mr President, I am deeply proud to once again have been elected to serve as rapporteur on corporate social responsibility and proud, too, to have been able to achieve an unprecedented level of support and consensus in Parliament for this report. Indeed, I would like to thank Raffaele Baldassarre and all the colleagues present for their help in achieving this.
What are the messages that we are sending to business? First, that responsibility is not separate from the economic crisis but inextricably linked to its causes and integral to Europe’s economic recovery. Just as companies undertaking CSR recognise that reputation has been missing from the balance sheet, confidence is the asset most desperately needed for our economy as a whole and restoring trust in business is essential to achieving it.
Second, shifting from short-term to long-term thinking is not just a challenge for the banking sector. For all companies, it affects the workforce, suppliers and customers, as well as shareholders. It is the cultural shift our whole economy needs.
Third, the longest-term challenge that we face, the transition to a low carbon economy, cannot simply be parked, as last year’s forward agreed prediction showed. This is about sustainability, and there will be no sustainable economic recovery without business itself being sustainable.
Fourthly, business cannot afford to stand by as discontent rises at the social costs of the crisis. In this resolution we make a call to business to act on youth job creation, on the sustainability of pensions and in tackling exploitative labour practices in company supply chains. Companies operating abroad have long recognised that CSR is part of their social licence to operate. Against the backcloth of the anti-globalisation and Occupy movements, and growing support for protectionism across the political spectrum, I argue that CSR is now central to support for Europe’s own social licence to pursue open markets and trade-led growth.
So this Parliament welcomes the commitments made in the Commission’s communication, and I too welcome the contribution by Commissioner Tajani and his colleagues. We welcome the new definition and its acceptance of the smart mix of both voluntary and regulatory measures agreed in Geneva, and now in Brussels.
I am particularly pleased that EU action on CSR is to be firmly rooted within a rapidly evolving architecture. We call on the Commission to evaluate and report on implementation of the UN’s Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, to formally adhere to the updated OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, and to champion a new convention on corporate accountability within the UN itself, building on the powerful argument put by a coalition of investors led by Aviva at last year’s UN Rio+20 Summit.
Finally, we endorse a new emphasis on corporate transparency, building on sustainability reporting by 6 000 companies championed by the global reporting initiative. If the EU proposal that is coming up itself builds on this and is based on reporting integrated into financial accounting and not additional to it, I am confident that it will play a decisive role in prompting the scaling up of responsible business that business itself says it wants.
Once again Mr President, whether it is on corporate reporting or on wider CSR strategies, CSR must not be portrayed as an expensive add-on. It has to be integral to business strategy and the true cost lies in ignoring it."@en1
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