4th International Conference on Corporate Social Responsibility

4th International Conference on Corporate Social Responsibility

From September 22-24, 2010 Dagmar Woehlert, CANGO Senior International Advisor, attended the 4^th International Conference on Corporate Social Responsibility in Berlin, Germany. The overarching topic of the conference was CSR-challenges around the globe .

The conference series started in 2004 as a platform for multi-stakeholder dialogue organized every other year by the BerlinHumboldtUniversity, and it has continued to include representatives from various stakeholders such as academics, students, companies, NGOs, public sector and interested individuals.

The conference addressed the global need for all CSR actors to cooperate in a post global financial crisis world to enable sustainable development on a global scale.

Six plenary sessions dealt with a big variety of CSR related topics such as the impact of multi-stakeholder coalitions, responsible leadership with a special focus on the education field, NGOs and corporations: collaboration and conflict as well as social business and social entrepreneurship. Participants could choose from more than 30 breakout sessions to discuss these topics in detail.

The relation of corporations to global civil society as major part of responsible action was one of the main issues. Panelists stated that civil society even though a key player in defining the responsibility of corporations often was the weakest part of multi-stakeholder approaches out of various reasons such as lack of capacity and access to information. Civil society organizations need more right to speak up. These problems have to be taken into account and CSOs should be granted their share in discussions and dialogues thus providing a platform for cooperation of the corporate and the civil society sector on various levels such as CSOs challenging the responsibility of companies but also collaborating in joint projects to promote social development.

All in all the conference was seeking to identify trends in social responsibility and sustainability.