Nature of CSR Challenges and Opportunities

Stakeholders challenge corporations to play social responsibility roles - at both the domestic and international levels. Challenges usually focus on one or more elements of CSR such as environmental protection, health and safety, corporate governance, human resource management practices, human rights, community development and consumer protection. In many cases, the challenges are framed in an incremental way and on other occasions the challenges are spelled out in a more comprehensive and overarching manner. The challenges often call for voluntary actions by businesses to demonstrate responsible behaviour and effective responses to social and environmental problems - both in the domestic and international contexts. The demands also call upon the public sector to reinforce corporate leadership and to use other policy tools such as economic and regulatory instruments to encourage CSR.

The challenges for action can differ considerably from one stakeholder group to another. For example, the demands can range from a call for more disclosure of information to demands for improved stakeholder involvement to requests for changes in management practices to proposals for altering the relationships between company directors, business managers, auditors, shareholders, debt holders, employees, suppliers, customers, community members, and other stakeholders. Some of the challenges are oriented to the ways that businesses manage their internal operations such as human resources management while others are directed at the ways that a business interacts with the rest of the community and society (e.g. human rights, consumers, and supplier relationships).

To obtain some illustrative sense of the scope and nature of the challenges from civic society at the domestic level within Canada, the site visitor is encouraged to explore the following examples of different viewpoints:

• Task Force on the Churches and Corporate Responsibility
• Amnesty International Canada
• GlobeScan

The following sites provide other  examples of challenges that are emanating from different quarters of the Canadian business community itself: 

• Canadian Coalition for Good Governance (please visit Ontario Teachers Pension Plan (OTPP) site for current information. The Coalition will in the near future provide information on its own future site)
• Canadian Council for Chief Executives
• Canadian Centre for Ethics and Corporate Policy
• Corporate Knights

There also are challenges that come to Canadian business from the international level. As in the domestic situation described above, the international challenges cover a wide range of potential action for Canadian business. For example, the recent legislative changes stemming from the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the US are challenging Canadian businesses and public institutions to improve performance in the area of corporate governance. Likewise, pension disclosure legislation in the UK, Australia and Germany are placing pressures for Canadian business practice and public policy to respond in kind. Other initiatives at the international level such as the UN Global Compact, World Summit on Sustainable Development, OECD Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises, International Organization for Standardization (ISO), OECD Principles for Corporate Governance, Social Accountability 8000, Global Reporting Initiative, World Business Council for Sustainable Development, etc. all place challenges upon Canadian businesses to develop effective approaches to managing social and environmental issues. Links to these initiatives are provided throughout this site.