How to Increase Your Company's CSR Score

There are plenty of reasons why your company needs to prioritize corporate social responsibility (CSR). Here are some of them:

• Having good CSR and being known for social responsibility can help propel your business's brand and image forward.

• Social responsibility will encourage and empower your employees to use your company's tools to do good for others.

• When your company has formal CSR programs, it can help boost employee morale and empower them to be more productive.

• While tax avoidance should never be the reason your business should prioritize CSR, it's a known fact that companies that have high ratings are associated with lower taxes paid.

If 2021 is the year you want your company's CSR score to rise, here are some ways to get started.

Establish a team dedicated to CSR

If you don't have one yet, consider forming a team whose sole purpose is to organize your company's CSR activities. You can begin by identifying employees who have exhibited a passion for this work and worthwhile causes. They must also have a deep insight into your company's mission, vision, values, and priorities because this team of individuals needs to be able to connect your company's specific ethos into the work, and they need to have the ability to articulate your company's worthwhile endeavors across various departments. The size of the team will depend on how big your company is.

Consider CSR themes

Assess how your company is doing in the four major CSR themes or categories:

• Environmental, which is all about aiming to reduce your business's environmental impact. There are plenty of activities that can center around this theme. One example is switching to processes that can help significantly decrease damaging effects on the environment, like an oil-water separator system or machine. This machine can help separate oil from water, which can help prevent grease, oil, and other hydrocarbons from entering or infiltrating the drainage system. Making this switch will help protect your area's waterways and local environments. Other environmental CSR activities include activities that focus on water use, recycling, eco-friendly business policies, energy use, waste management, and emissions.

• Labor and human rights, which can focus on businesses understanding the social and economic consequences of their business activities. This is gaining an insight into how corporations negatively impact human rights, whether through direct contact (with employees or customers) or indirect contact (workers of suppliers or those living in places that are negatively affected by a business's operations). The first step is to ensure that none of your business's processes and systems are harming marginalized people, and then you can consider doing some CSR activities surrounding this theme. This can be achieved by voluntary codes of conduct and guidelines, closely monitoring procedures, being transparent in reporting your findings, and promoting socially responsible reporting indexes.

• On the other hand, ethical CSR is all about businesses assuring their consumers that they care about the customers' interests and that these interests are embedded in the company's values. This theme ensures that the business's services and products are developed to meet customers' needs and that they will not be sold using manipulative marketing tactics. One example is being transparent about the ingredients of clean products and saying no to greenwashing.

• Another CSR theme you can explore is sustainable procurement, which is all about ensuring that all of your company's procurement decisions and processes meet the requirements of your stakeholders without compromising environmental and social ethics. One example is not using child labor or illegal chemicals that can cause harm to workers and customers.

Set SMART goals

After assessing where your company stands in the four major CSR categories, now is the time to set goals for your company and establish a detailed plan and strategy to hit those goals. Make sure your goals are:

• Specific

• Measurable

• Attainable

• Relevant

• Time-based

When setting goals, you need to ensure that your company's key stakeholders are part of the conversations. You also need to identify how these CSR initiatives will benefit your company, like your cost savings, encouraging a more positive workforce, increasing employee morale and engagement, a positive reputation among the public, and enhanced brand awareness. Ensure that your goals are sustainable and that you constantly go back to your activities to see what's working and what you need to improve.

As a company, you must show a level of social responsibility that communicates that you care more than just about profit. Do your business a favor-and society-and work hard to increase your company's CSR.