The definition of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is: how companies contribute to social, environmental and economic sustainability, while simultaneously addressing their potential adverse impacts on the agreed international principles on social, environmental and economic sustainability.

CSR is thus about how companies respond to the international principles on sustainability. The following international conventions are at the heart of social, environmental and economic sustainability: The Human Rights conventions, the Rio Declaration, the Paris Agreement and the Anti-Corruption conventions.

In the year 2000, these principles were presented to the business world via the Global Compact’s ten principles. In 2011, how one works with the international principles for social sustainability was concretized when the UN agreed on the minimum standards for responsible business conduct and established the UN Guidelines for Human Rights and Business. These standards were soon applied to environmental and economic sustainability via the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.

The ten principles are outlined below.

The UN Global Compact is the world’s first voluntary initiative on corporate social responsibility. Its goal is to promote responsible business conduct. As members of the UN Global Compact, companies commit to engaging in CSR on the basis of a common set of values made up of ten principles. The principles are based on the internationally adopted conventions within the field of human rights including employment rights, the environment and anti-corruption.

All REGA companies have signed up to the UN Global Compact and have thereby committed to working with the ten principles.

In order to get the management system in place, every company must:

Adopt a policy which addresses the company’s CSR in accordance with the UNGPs and the OECD Guidelines.

Build up an efficient management system that focuses on dealing with the potential adverse impacts and subsequently prevent them. This is managed by conducting regular impact assessments in which the company:

• Identifies potential adverse impacts on social, environmental and economic sustainability
• Prevents adverse impacts on human rights within social, environmental and economic sustainability
• Mitigates adverse impacts on social, environmental and economic sustainability
• Gives employees who experience adverse impacts access to remedy
• Measures the efficiency of the company’s efforts to prevent and mitigate adverse impacts
• Communicates the work with CSR including the results of the impact assessment and the results of the efficiency measurement.

All REGA companies are obliged to implement the minimum standard for responsible business conduct by 2020. Many businesses work with the UN Global Compact; meanwhile, the restaurateurs in REGA are taking the work to another level by documenting that they are aligned with the minimum standards. REGA is the world’s first industry-wide initiative that adheres strictly to the minimum standards and its members will be among the first in the world to document the process and actions taken.

The UN Global Goals are putting us on course towards a more sustainable development for both human beings and the environment across the globe. They were adopted by the UN in 2015 and are a plan for what companies around the world should work on in the lead up to 2030. The Global Goals are also known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The SDGs are made up of 7 goals and 169 sub-goals which oblige all states to adhere to quantifiable actions towards increased sustainability. The new order recognizes that social, environmental and economic sustainability go hand in hand.

By contributing to achieving the UN Global Goals, companies support states in achieving the goals, but it remains voluntary at present for companies to do so.

There are two aspects to corporate social responsibility: It is both about how companies contribute to social, environmental an economic sustainability, for instance by working with the SDGs, and also about how they deal with their potential adverse impacts on the internationally agreed principles on social, environmental and economic sustainability.

By contributing to sustainability, you do a particular service to the society that you are a part of, but it is important not to forget the core that is constituted by the minimum standard of responsible business conduct and which ensures that companies first and foremost deal with their potential adverse impacts.