Third Hi4CSR Learning Activity took place in Brussels from 11th to 15th of September 2017 at ABIS – The Academy of Business in Society. The event washosted by ABIS and its participants were members of eight renowned European organizations in the field of CSR: RRiF-plus d.o.o. (coordinator, Croatia), The Croatian Institute for CSR (Croatia), ABIS – The Academy of Business in Society (Belgium), Ekvilib Institute (Slovenia), Global Impact Grid (Germany), LUM University (Italy), Pontis Foundation (Slovakia) and Bridging to the Future (United Kingdom).
As project deals with harmonization and implementation of EU CSR legislation into national legal frameworks and its main goals are adult education, exchange of examples of good practice between project partners and dissemination of accumulated knowledge, learning activity was organized to cover all six project topics, with an emphasis on assessing the current state of play of CSR policies at the EU level.
On the first day, participants worked on two project topics, Employment of persons with disabilities with the related Directive 2000/78/EC and Stimulating the processing of used materials with the accompanying Directive2006/112/EC.
The topic of the second day was The Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC) and it featured a presentation from every project partner on the Water Framework, its transposition into national legislation, current status of its implementation as well as best practice examples from partners’ countries.Third day included a study visit to the institutions of the European Union. The project partners went to the European Commission, Directorate General for Environment for a meeting with Karen Dalgaard-Sanning, Policy Officer working on the implementation of EU Water Framework Directive, where they had the chance to hear first-hand about the current state of play of EU CSR policies relating to water, difficulties regarding their implementation as well as learn more about the role of corporate social responsibility in sustainable water management and the rising question of economic value of water.After the meeting, project partners visited Parlamentarium at the European Parliament where they learned more about EU’s history, the evolution of its institutions and the law-making process of EU, from drafting legislation through adopting it to evaluating and improving existing legislation.
Fourth day was dedicated to non-financial reporting and the related DirectiveEU2014/95. Bruno Van Parys,Corporate Sustainability Senior Officer in Solvay, held a presentation about Sustainable Portfolio Management (SPM), a tool which aims to systematically drive business portfolio towards better and more sustainable business. He explained the growing importance of disclosing non-financial information for companiesand embedding sustainability across supply chains, and talked about new developments in the field such as the introduction of UN Sustainable Development Goals framework into CSR- and sustainability reporting.
The last day was dedicated to two related topics: Eco-labels and the related Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 and food donation in theframework of general food law regardingRegulation (EC) No 178/2002.
During the learning activity, project partners collaborated on writing the CSR Guide which will be the first comparative study of its kind to cover six topics from the field of corporate social responsibility and sustainability,andpresent, in a clear and systematic way, implementation and harmonization of related EU legislation, as well as best practice examples from different member states.
The next learning activity will take place in Bratislava in November.
You can find additional information about the project on the www.hi4csr.com website, write to the consortium at info@hi4csr.com or connect through our social media pages: Facebook, Twitter,LinkedInandYouTube channel.