CSR Sweden, Sweden
Focus on a partner, October 2011
In your opinion, what are the key CSR/sustainability priorities for companies in Sweden?
Sweden is a small country that depends on its export. The CSR and sustainability issues are politically located in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the Minister for Trade. Consequently the discussion in Sweden tends to circle around issues such as supply chain, human rights, anti-corruption and the environment. Also health issues often come up, but in that context people think of global problems such as HIV/AIDS or malaria rather than health problems within Sweden.
The Government promotes global responsibility
The Swedish Government has a unit called Swedish Partnership for Global Responsibility, encouraging companies in working according to the UN Global Compact. Sweden also has an officially appointed “CSR Ambassador”.
Sweden aims at raising the awareness of CSR globally. For example, the Swedish Institute (a public agency that promotes interest and confidence in Sweden around the world) runs several management programs focusing on sustainability. These programs primarily targets China, India and Northern Europe. In these programs young company managers and professionals are invited to ambitious study visits to Swedish companies.
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The Swedish Government owns 54 companies and since w few years it is mandatory for these 54 companies to report according to GRI guidelines. The responsible minister for these companies is the Minister for Financial Markets, who in recent years has often raised issues on corporate responsibility and transparency, mainly targeting the financial sector.
Because of the situation described above many of Sweden’s larger companies, who are often quite far advanced in CSR and sustainability, focus their CSR activities on markets abroad. Perhaps the most featured “internal” issue is that of reporting and transparency.
However, a slight change in this can be seen. Swedish companies tend to take more initiatives focusing on problems or challenges within Sweden, such as youth employment, segregation etc. Also, politicians that historically have not been part of these discussions address the CSR and sustainability issues more frequently, for example politicians from the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs and the Ministry of Employment.
How is CSR Sweden working with companies to address these priorities?
CSR Sweden aims at keeping a balance between being an integral part of Swedish business life and being an independent player without formal obligations towards any specific stakeholders. CSR Sweden is not part of our members’ daily business, rather an organisation that plays the role of pushing, stimulating and sometimes provoking the members by offering new know-how, expertise and best practice. We show our members that there are always ways of working more strategically with CSR.
In that spirit we are currently pushing issues such as anti-corruption, youth unemployment, integration and entrepreneurship in our member network.
We promote entrepreneurship in Sweden
Sweden traditionally is a country with few but big companies. This is rapidly changing, however, and Sweden’s relatively poor entrepreneurial activity could present us with major problems in the future. CSR Sweden is closely linked to an organisation called Jobs and Society NyföretagarCentrum (for more information, go to: www.nyforetagarcentrum.se), a foundation that bas been promoting entrepreneurship by giving cost-free advice to people wanting to start a company since 1985. The Jobs and Society Foundation has contributed to more than 150 000 new companies in 25 years – an unprecedented figure.
This work has become more important than ever, from a CSR and sustainability perspective. Sweden simply needs more companies. And through a close collaboration between CSR Sweden and Jobs and Society NyföretagarCentrum thousands of entrepreneurs starting new companies will take sustainable development into account when completing their business plan.
For more information about CSR Sweden, visit: http://www.csrsweden.se/
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