Doing your Duty - Corporate social responsibility and health and safety.
By Dr W. Richard Griffiths PhD, MSc (Env Man), MEd, GRSC, Cert Ed, FRSH, FRIPH, MIOSH, MIIRSM, Tutor at health and safety training specialists, RRC Training.

Health and safety managers, who have traditionally had the task of maintaining the standards of health and safety activities within an organisation, have become the natural choice for taking responsibility for other moral, legal and economic imperatives. They are increasingly being asked to take a more holistic safety, health and environmental (SHE) approach as well as introducing corporate social responsibility (CSR) into their organisations.

CSR (corporate social responsibility) appears to have no one universally accepted definition although it increasingly applies to both large and small companies. The DTI does, however, have the following definition:

"Corporate Social Responsibility is about meeting more demanding social and environmental expectations while improving business performance."

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CSR’s importance, however, has been elevated by the requirement for integrity and transparency in business following the Enron collapse and corporate misbehaviour in the United States and the Turnbull report in the UK. This has urged companies to adopt a more rigorous approach to risk management. Additionally the quality of their work is constantly under scrutiny from environmental pressure groups, the media and the public, not to mention potential clients and investors. In this respect organisations are both responsible and accountable for resultant outcomes in society and may be liable to a loss of goodwill, trust, etc. from its stakeholders, leading to consumer boycotts (Shell/ Brent Spar in Germany), reduction in shareholder values (Railtrack) or even cessation of business (Union Carbide/Bhopal).

CSR can be seen as the business contribution to achieving sustainable development goals. It involves business taking account of its economic, social and environmental impacts in the way it operates,in order to ensure a better quality of life for everyone now, and for future generations. The company’s initiatives must meet certain criteria in order to be defined as being CSR in nature, such as:

  • Initiatives should go beyond common regulatory and conventional compliance.
  • Interaction should occur with the stakeholders - customers, suppliers, partners and the community.
  • Social and environmental impacts (e.g. to minimise pollution, waste and nuisance to neighbours) should be integrated into the business operations.
  • Consideration of health and safety issues, good conditions of work and equal opportunity, as well as high standards of professionalism due to its high risk occupations for workplace accidents.

The integration of these values into the business environment is dependent on the company (small or large) balancing all its priorities (e.g. competitiveness, reputation, performance), with those of its stakeholders, and as such may be driven by issues that are increasingly important to stakeholders.

The potential benefits of CSR for companies include the following:

  • Reducing risk
  • An enhanced reputation as an employer
  • Providing a better quality of work
  • Competitive edge over business rivals
  • A more committed and efficient work force resulting in enhanced profits
  • A positive impact on society and the environment.

The identification and prioritisation of a business’s impacts can be achieved through standards such as AA1000 (accountability and social dialogue) and SA1000 (social accountability). The recognition of its importance has seen draft regulations introduced which outline an organisation’s Operating Financial Review (OFR). The review should include a summary of its risk management approaches, and possible health and safety costs and liabilities and a section on corporate social responsibility.

Clients are beginning to expect and demand a CSR agenda from businesses and this may become a determining factor between securing a contract and missing out. In short, there are growing societal demands by the public at large for improvement of corporate governance and accountability and there are several areas that all companies should be addressing in order to become more socially responsible.

Many such issues grouped under the banner of CSR are already part of certain industries, but are not recognised as social obligations. These include ethics, human rights, community, environment and employee relations. The area is a complex one and involves a number of relationships between government, business and civil society, which are ultimately responsible for economic, social and environmental outcomes. Businesses are increasingly becoming more powerful and global in their approaches and as such, more responsible and accountable for outcomes in society.

Occupational health and safety not only contributes to corporate goals but also plays a part in the social and ethical role of the organisation. Companies are being guided to measure and report on occupational health and safety issues through their CSR policies to promote such issues. The actual measuring and reporting systems employed enable them not only to be held accountable but also to allow continual improvement to take place in the operational and financial aspects of its business. However, the measuring and reporting systems are required to be both accurate and transparent to avoid any corporate misbehaviour as already described. In order for continual improvement to take place they require performances to be benchmarked internally i.e. previous business results and externally i.e.similar businesses.

However CSR issues, such as occupational health and safety, should not be viewed in isolation. They are affected by certain forces for change (and vice versa) that drive both business attitudes and behaviour. For businesses to take such issues more seriously, they must be seen to be material either to their financial performance, reputation or interaction with wider stakeholders (for example, by affecting the health and safety of the public). The issues are more influential if they reinforce other forces for such change. It is important, therefore, to set occupational health and safety in the context of the other factors that may affect a company’s performance.

To raise the profile of occupational health and safety in the CSR agenda, it will therefore be important to demonstrate links with other forces of change that drive businesses to improve working conditions and employment practices and may well depend on its importance to its major stakeholders (e.g. investors, employees, media). Clearly if they see occupational health and safety as a major issue, this will impinge on its CSR activities. This will help make occupational health and safety a material part of the business and enhance its integration, achieving higher business performance.

A recent BITC Survey covered the top 100 highest scoring companies from 139 respondents. The assessment detailed the impact areas selected to improve their CSR. These ranged from community investment to human rights in the supply chain and reducing water consumption. Of these companies, 70 show occupational safety and health as one of their (on average) 4 key areas. An important issue for larger businesses, considered important in their CSR activities is a threat to its reputation and this is therefore given the highest priority. Occupational health and safety is usually only considered an important CSR issue in industries where injury to employees may be sufficiently serious to threaten the reputation of its business as an employer or product/service provider based on the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1985 (RIDDOR).

Occupational safety and health (OHS) forms an integral part of CSR and this is confirmed by its inclusion in all the major measurement and reporting guidelines and tools developed for CSR.

The role of CSR and health and safety in dealing with the issues discussed above can cover a wide spectrum of areas and issues for different organisations and have a large target audience with ever increasing societal expectations. In addition, their role has added pressure from government initiatives and programmes, and government stakeholders, as well as those in the global arena of business.

The individual workload of organisations is becoming more complex, not only at local, regional and European level, but also on an international basis. A broad and diverse variety of skills is required by them in all of these areas, although certain skills and competencies are assumed and often bolted on to existing roles. These above points raise important questions, in both large and small companies, due to limited availability of time and resources. In this respect, increased implementation and training in the integration of occupational health and safety and environmental and corporate social responsibility could be beneficial to both large and small companies alike. The legal, moral and economic arguments for such an approach and accountability for its outcomes are pivotal in the continual improvement of businesses as a whole in the areas of corporate social responsibility and occupational health and safety.

RRC Training specialises in health safety and environmental training for companies and individuals.