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ERM and Corporate Social Responsibility | |
In a world of increasingly globalised business with operations and supply chains stretching across the world, corporations are exposed to an enormous diversity of cultures, expectations and values.
ERM has built a global team dedicated to meeting clients’ evolving needs as they respond to new demands from stakeholders and changes in their business operating environment. Issues such as ethics and accountability, human rights, social and economic development and community impacts are becoming real considerations and posing new, somewhat intangible risks to a business and its reputation. These changes are rooted in growing expectations of consumers, NGOs, communities, governments and investors, that business manage its impact on and interaction with society in a responsible way and contribute to sustainable development. Increasingly, managing CSR issues is not an option but a business imperative. While traditional risk management has focused on tangible, measurable risk, social risk is often intangible, non-compliance based and if left unmanaged can damage both a business’s reputation (and share price) and physical operations. The challenge to business is to manage this intangible risk strategically in order to reduce reputational and operational risk, improve its relationship with key stakeholders and maintain its license to operate.
Our Approach
ERM’s CSR team works at the corporate or stragtegic level to identify the social footprint and societal expectations of business and to establish social policies, practices and management systems that respond effectively to business needs. At the business unit/operational level, ERM’s CSR team works with companies, and their national and international business units, to implement management systems that enhance social performance, help companies build relationships with local communities, undertake social risk and impact assessments, design and implement community investment and resettlement programs, manage their supply chains and communicate their performance to internal and external stake-holders. Stakeholder engagement is a corner stone of much of our work.
Business Value of Corporate Social Responsibility
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