Brussels, 13/10/2004 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday, the European Commission organised a conference to mark the beginning of a European-wide campaign for heightening awareness about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Speakers included European Commissioner Olli Rehn, MEP Philip Bushill-Matthews (EPP-ED, UK), representatives from the private sector, trade unions and experts from the field of CSR.
The campaign will run for 9 months and will include 65 educational one-day events in the 25 EU Member States, three candidate countries and Norway. Each event will offer participants an introduction to CSR with a special focus on the aspects relevant to SMEs. Presentations by two real-life, good-practice CSR examples will be made at each event by companies directly engaged in CSR activities with their stakeholders, followed by open discussions and question-and-answer sessions. The programme will ensure that SMEs have a good understanding of the drivers, success factors and pitfalls related to CSR. It will also energise and motivate SMEs to engage in CSR activities by familiarising them with the many benefits to be gained, and by offering them practical information on how to proceed. Lastly, the programme offers SMEs a tailored, user-friendly CSR toolkit to take home. The programme to follow the launch event will mainly target Europe's 25 million SMEs, who are recognised as the most important drivers of economic growth and employment and represent over 95% of European businesses. The Commission's partners in the CSR for SMEs programme are EUROCHAMBRES, UEAPME and Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide.