A Roadmap for Integrating Corporate Social Responsibility into EU Member States and Business Practises
Competitiveness of SMEs is high in the agenda of the European Commission (EC). Due to economic crisis there is a widespread expectation that businesses should be more accountable to the society. The EC issued the Directive 2014/95/EU, where companies concerned are required to disclose in their management report, information on policies, risks and outcomes as regards environmental, social and employee aspects, respect for human rights, anticorruption and bribery issues, and diversity in their board of directors; In other words, to integrate in their business models the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) principles. Although, the new directive applies only to a limited number of large EU companies it leaves out the Small and Medium sized enterprises (SMEs) that are the predominant form of enterprise in EU and a key to achieving the goals of growth and jobs strategy. Studies have shown that CSR is viewed as a vital concept that businesses of all types and size need to understand and address. Also, there is a positive relationship between SMEs and CSR and their competitiveness. Our common challenge is to help member states to apply the new directive and new measures in their Operational Programmes in order SMEs to increase their competitiveness and sustainability.

The overall objective of the project is to help EU member states to apply CSR as a holistic management approach to SMEs. In this way, SMEs will increase their competitiveness. The main outputs of the project will help countries involved in the project to exchange experience, best practices and create a road map for integrating CSR into national and regional legislations and Programmes and as well to create national/regional actions plans. Moreover, an important output of the project will be the policy recommendations for the revision of the Directive 2014/95/EU in order to create precedents for future policy developments on CSR and corporate accountability not only for large companies but as well for SMEs.