No mere shop talk

4th Regional Conference “CSR in Times of Crisis” in Sofia was a great success and concluded in joint declaration to pool resources

GTZ and the National Round Table for Introduction of Social Standards, Bulgaria, under the auspices of the Bulgarian Ministry for Labour and Social Policy, welcomed approximately 100 participants at the 4th Regional Conference “Corporate Social Responsibility in Times of Crisis”, held in Sofia June 18th-19th.

The main questions discussed among high-level representatives of government, including the Bulgarian Minister for Labour and Social Policy, Ms. Emilia Maslarova, business, and civil society as well as international experts and European policy makers were: Does the world economic crisis cause companies to abandon their CSR?  And will governments interfere to stimulate the private sector to become more responsible?

It was noted that the current crisis offers opportunities to better acknowledge the importance of CSR, including at the highest decision making level within companies. This opens possibilities for more concrete action along the entire supply chains. Some seven Bulgarian companies had shown such concrete action and were awarded a “Socially Responsible Company of the Year Award” offered by the National Round Table for Introduction of Social Standards, Bulgaria.

It was agreed, however, that the current economic and social crisis calls for rethinking the role of business in the society at large: Trust in companies needs to be regained. To pool resources and energies for doing that, the conference participants came to the conclusion, formulated in the conference declaration, that the various CSR initiatives in Bulgaria should coordinate their efforts under one umbrella.

Venue

18th- 19th of June in Sofia, Bulgaria

More information

For the conference declaration and further details please visit the website.
http://csr.bilsp.org/materials_en.php

posted on: 6/16/2009