European Commission – CSR Vaderegio II – Public sector innovation to deliver social and environment benefits

Client challenge

Sustainable development and CSR are high on the public policy agenda at EU, national and regional levels. The European Commission were keen to better understand the range of ways in which public authorities were promoting CSR. With this in mind CSR Vaderegio II - a ten European region survey on CSR - was commissioned in 2003. The aim of CSR Vaderegio II was to disseminate information on regional practice for the adoption of CSR and deployment in the policies of the local regional authorities.

What did we do?

Article 13 conducted the research on public authorities in the Greater London region. The research identified over 80 public bodies operating in London. A selection of organisations covering all the different types of public bodies was researched, resulting in over 40 examples of ‘CSR’. From these, seven examples were developed into insight case studies. The case studies revealed a variety of benefits that ranged from job creation, training, reduction in crime and anti-social behaviour, to the recognition of individuals of this approach, environmental improvements and increasing environmental awareness.

Article 13’s insight research highlighted the innovative ways in which public bodies and partnerships involving public bodies have incorporated CSR issues within their ongoing programmes. The identified CSR activities were found to be implicit, occurring at the operational level rather than explicit at the strategic level in the form of policies. They reveal a number of CSR activities embedded within the project or programmes that include social inclusion, supplier involvement and stakeholder engagement.

Article 13’s experience in compiling insight case studies was used by the overall project through advice and guidance on the development of the standardised questionnaire and the interpretation of the data.

How did we break the cycle?

Rather than just producing five best practice case studies, as part of the agreement, Article 13 went a stage further, producing two extra case studies and publishing a report on the wider context and implications, to foster inter EC organisational knowledge transfer and learning. The special report Innovation for social responsibility in London’s public services published in May 2004 was circulated to all the project partners, the participating public authorities and posted on Article 13’s website.

For further information about Vaderegio, visit their website at www.csrvaderegio.net.

© Article 13 2005