Managing your CSR strategy: how and why?

Introduction

Today, more than ever, the climate emergency is on everyone's mind. And beyond carbon issues, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become a recurring theme within companies.

While it's important to build a sound CSR strategy, the real challenge lies, as is often the case, in executing that strategy. Indeed, knowing how to *pilot* one's overall CSR strategy correctly is still sometimes a very difficult subject to tackle. In this article, we'll look at the strategic importance of good management, in order to act sustainably on the environment and enhance the value of our commitments.

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What is CSR in a company?

Before discussing strategy and its management, it makes sense to look at the notion of CSR. As defined by the French Ministry of Ecological Transition, CSR is "a concept in which companies integrate social, environmental and economic concerns into their activities and relations with their stakeholders".

As Corporate Social Responsibility is based on the pillars of sustainable development, we encourage you to take a look at our article on the subject, in which we detail each of the concerns that make up CSR. Given the impact of their activities on the environment, companies have a key role to play in moving our societies towards a more sustainable model. They must therefore meet requirements of various kinds (regulatory, economic, etc.).

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What CSR requirements, and in what form?

Although long considered a time-consuming subject of no real economic or strategic interest, the implementation of a CSR strategy is now an issue that can affect all companies, in various forms:

• The Loi Pacte (2019), and ISO26000 (2010), among others, are leading companies to take social and environmental issues into account in their activities.
• As part of the CSRD (and previously the DPEF), companies with over 250 employees and sales of €50 million or a balance sheet of over €25 million, as well as certain SMEs, are required to publish an annual non-financial report covering the social and environmental risks, challenges and actions associated with their activities.
• Subcontractors and suppliers may be subject to CSR requirements set out in calls for tender or, more generally, in their customers' purchasing policies.
• Companies are therefore subject to various constraints linked to their environmental commitments and actions. Whatever the nature of these constraints, organizations must be able to respond to them, and this means implementing a CSR strategy.

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Defining your CSR strategy

As we have seen, implementing a CSR strategy must enable the company to demonstrate its voluntary commitment, and meet stakeholders' expectations regarding the impact of its activities.

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How do you define your strategy?

Defining a strategy means first of all defining a starting point, a basis on which to work, before drawing up a roadmap.

The materiality matrix is an important step in this process. It maps out the company's challenges, risks and needs in relation to its activities and stakeholders.

In this way, a company can build its CSR strategy around the different elements that emerge from this matrix, and focus its efforts where it will have the greatest impact (employee well-being, business transparency, environmental actions, etc.).

Once this assessment has been made, and the main issues identified, it's important to make these objectives operational. To do this, a company can create a certain number (but not too many!) of key performance indicators, or KPIs.

Formalizing your strategy and actions means you can monitor, understand and quantify them as you apply and manage your CSR strategy. To do this, the company can rely on several elements, such as :

• The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals: by cross-referencing the SDGs with the challenges of the materiality matrix, a company can define the actions to be taken.
• A Bilan Carbone d'entreprise By carrying out a Bilan Carbone, a company that has identified its CO2 emissions as a major issue can define quantified reduction targets.
• Once you've defined your CSR strategy, you need to know how to manage it so as to involve all your employees in this commitment to the climate and the environment.

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How do you set up a CSR strategy?

The effectiveness of a CSR strategy is measured by the results of the actions that are carried out, and employee involvement is therefore essential.

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Raising awareness & training

The first step in implementing a CSR strategy is therefore to ensure that all internal stakeholders (employees, decision-makers, trade unions, etc.), and to some extent external stakeholders (suppliers, public bodies, etc.), are aware of the company's commitment. There are several ways of doing this:

• Training: this provides employees with all the keys and skills they need to fully grasp the challenges of CSR strategy, and thus contribute to its success.
• The Climate Fresco The Climate Fresco: these awareness-raising workshops help to understand the issues and encourage involvement in the company's strategy.
• This list is not exhaustive, of course, and there are many other initiatives that can help make environmental issues an integral part of a company's day-to-day operations (local initiatives, associations, etc.).

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How do you manage a CSR project?

Once all company employees are aware of the challenges of climate change and sustainable development, it's time to take concrete action.

However, a company's commitment to reducing its impact must be sustained over time, monitored and maintained, and tools exist for this purpose.

Lakaa 's mission is simple: to enable you to deploy and monitor local CSR actions in your network (sales outlets, agencies, stores...), share best practices and communicate more precisely on your commitments.

Lakaa offers many benefits for the company, its employees and the regions involved:

• Make employees' environmental commitment a reality in their working environment.
• Leveraging individual commitment with collective commitment.
• Involve all employees, whatever their job and wherever they are.
• Connect with local players through local partners.

This centralized platform allows you to track ongoing projects with precise KPIs, and for employees to show their commitment to the environment by taking part in actions or proposing new ones.

By making it easier and more sustainable to implement actions, Lakaa enables companies and their networks to anchor and manage their CSR strategy over the long term.

Now you know all about the challenges of a well-constructed CSR trajectory, and the importance of steering it to ensure its effectiveness.