POLICIES TO PROMOTE CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY (CSR) AND ASSESSMENT OF CSR IMPACTS

The Corporate social responsibility (CSR) concept is linked to the company’s responsibility for its impact on the society. The CSR is important for sustainability, competitiveness and innovation of the economy of each country and is tightly linked to the success in approaching Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) by the world countries. SDGs provide many benefits and opportunities for companies and in terms of risk management, increase the access to capital, improvement of stakeholders’ relationships etc. The literature on CSR has shifted from analysing the questions on whether companies should engage in societal challenges to whether and how countries and people benefit from these interventions in addressing sustainable development challenges, such as poverty, education, health, energy and environment. The recent scientific discussion on the assessment of CSR impacts provides contradictory results and findings. Therefore, this paper aims to shed more light on this issue and provide clear policy recommendations based on the conducted analysis. The paper analyses and compares the main policies that are aiming at the promotion of CSR, including reporting initiatives and requirements. The measures to assess the impact of CSR are discussed as well based on various reporting incentives that are guiding companies on how to assess and actually measure the effects of their activities by setting quantitative indicators. The dynamics of socially responsible companies and sustainability reporting initiatives are provided by indicating the effectiveness of the implemented policies and other initiatives to promote the CSR; however; the main emphasis of the paper is the impact of CSR on the societal challenges such as Sustainable Development Goals and integration of SDGs in the CSR assessment.