Club de Excelencia en Sostenibilidad

Focus on a Partner - July 2009

In this month's interview, Juan Alfaro, Managing Director of Club de Excelencia en Sostenibilidad, discusses the state of CSR in Spain and the government's working group on CSR. He also presents Club de Excelencia's CSR best practice catalogue and Benchmarking Forum, their recently launched Guide to Sustainable Mobility and their Executive Program on CSR with IE Business School.

Juan Alfaro

In your opinion, what are the main CSR topics and trends amongst companies in Spain at the moment?

The state of the art of the CR in Spain has improved substantially in the last two years, as stated in our upcoming project, "The state of the art of the CR among the big companies in Spain 2009". This catalogue will be launched this year and is the second part of the series started in 2007.

In this report, we show how Spanish companies are leaders in renewable energies and also are well-positioned in internal management processes on topics such as labour affairs. They have also improved their performance in reputation and risk management. Moreover, the leading companies in the country already identify CR as a strategic issue. In this regard, they have done important improvements in planning and implementing CR and stakeholder engagement.

There is still however, a long way to go in areas such as measuring returns on CR, internal and external communication and investing more in innovation. Finally, and due to the crisis, companies are re-enforcing transparency and corporate governance by expanding their values and requirements through the supply chain.

Club de Excelencia en Sostenibilidad has been, for some time now, publishing catalogues of best practices around corporate social responsibility in Spain, the latest having been published recently in Barcelona. In your opinion, how have these best practices evolved and what are the main changes from the first catalogue to now?

Well, in fact, the catalogue presented in Barcelona was the same that we launched last February in Madrid. The international distribution of the best catalogue will be carried out in 70 countries. This was the first time we have collected all the practices together. Club de Excelencia en Sostenibilidad has been pioneer in organizing best practices forum since its constitution and that has been the spirit of the Benchmarking Forum held every year in Port Aventura. The next one is planned for September 2009.

Each year, this Benchmarking Forum is focused on a different issue, depending on the trends and priorities. For instance, last year it focused on measuring the returns and the evolution of CR practices and initiatives in companies. This year it will focus on Stakeholder Engagement: communication and dialogue management with stakeholders.

Club de Excelencia en Sostenibilidad recently published a guide on Sustainable Mobility for responsible companies. What are the objectives of the guide and what are the main messages that it tries to transmit?

Sustainable mobility is a material issue in the area of CR of any company if we take into account the impact that the entrepreneurial activity has among the company's stakeholders; trips made by employees, clients or suppliers and how they travel. In this regard, the Guide tries to show and display means of transport under the umbrella of sustainability, in response to the interests of the different stakeholders.

We can conclude two main messages: firstly, they have already done a lot in the area of mobility. We have identified different measures related to mobility such as for flexibility in the workplace, conciliation and energy efficiency, which already exist and fix the basis of future mobility plans. Actually, that is the second message. Some regions in Spain already have legislation which force companies to have their own mobility plan We are convinced that such plans will be the trend of the future.

The Spanish government recently initiated a governmental working group on CSR. What is the mandate and objectives of this working group and what does it try to achieve?

It is an assessment council on CR initiated by the Ministry of Labour. It has the following duties: to inform the government about initiatives and public regulations affecting the performance of the companies and other public and private organisations, to propose government measures to promote the CR, specially among SMEs and, finally, being the reference for the development of CR in Spain.

Inside the Council, there are five main working group divided in five areas of performance: CR in the crisis and its contribution to productivity; transparency, communication, standards and reporting; education; consumption and SRI; diversity management, social cohesion and cooperation for development, including public-private partnerships.

Club de Excelencia en Sostenibilidad also organizes specific lectures and classes around corporate social responsibility. What is the topic and focus of the next class and what are the objectives of such classes? Who are they aimed at?

Club de Excelencia en Sostenibilidad not only organizes lectures and classes around the country, in different regions, but an entire Executive Program in Corporate Responsibility with the collaboration of the IE Business School, one of the most prestigious business schools in the world.

The next edition of this program will start in October, covering all the areas related to the Corporate Responsibility, such as: values and ethics, stakeholder engagement, strategy, measuring intangibles, corporate governance, environment, reporting, SRI, balanced scorecard, and various workshops with the most relevant actors in the field of CR.

The aim of the program is to train future directors of CR. This is why participating individuals come from different areas and backgrounds: quality management, environment, marketing, and communication. All of them have a high professional profile and record in respecting the quality standards that we want to be present, in order to enrich the classes.

You recently launched a newsletter on CSR. Could you tell us a bit more about it?

The Ri+ http://www.responsabilidadimas.org/ is a daily newsletter with specific channels in corporate responsibility, the main news, events, public policies, studies and more interesting information for people who wants to be up to date.

It has nine specific channels in the areas of social entrepreneurship, climate change, diversity and labour inclusion, energy efficiency, infrastructures and sustainable services, national council in CR, reputation, responsible innovations and sustainable construction.

More information

Read more about Club de Excelencia en Sostenibilidad at http://www.clubsostenibilidad.org/

Previous interviews

More interviews with our national partner organisations