(29 November 2010) Today, the most senior officials from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the Organization of American States (OAS) and Tecnológico de Monterrey signed a cooperation agreement to promote corporate social responsibility (CSR) among the region's companies.
Alicia Bárcena, José Miguel Insulza and Arturo Molina committed to developing joint activities in the corporate social responsibility area of the 2011 "Green Business Expo", to be held in Mexico from 4 to 6 April, so as to provide companies with a better understanding of relevant environmental and social issues, and supply them with the management tools needed to move forward with measuring their environmental and social performance.
Another aim of this partnership is to promote dialogue between the public and business sectors in areas such as generating a system of incentives and the implementation of public policies to boost the creation and/or conversion of green businesses and markets.
The agreement was signed at the ECLAC headquarters in Santiago, Chile.
The agreement also includes the possibility of forging special cooperative relations in areas of common interest by means of supplementary agreements, memoranda of understanding or the exchange of communications.
According to Alicia Bárcena, "We are very pleased with the signing of this agreement, in which we will explore jointly with OAS and Tecnológico de Monterrey the best mechanisms for public-private partnership to make progress towards green business. Corporate social responsibility is one option, but there are others. The main idea is to achieve a new State-market-society-relationship, so as to move towards a cross-cutting business strategy for all production sectors and every layer of the social fabric. ECLAC is very committed to the issue of innovation, and green businesses will undoubtedly require new paths for innovation".
She highlighted the joint work that ECLAC, OAS and other institutions have been carrying out for several years to monitor and disseminate this topic.
"I am very happy with the joint work regarding corporate social responsibility. Public-private partnerships are vital for progressing towards a sustainable economy", said José Miguel Insulza.
In Santiago in July, the Dialogue on the Role of Parties Involved in the Implementation of Corporate Social Responsibility brought together representatives from all sectors to discuss the possibility of setting up a shared vision of corporate social responsibility among the various actors and to consider the next steps for its implementation in the region, using public-private partnership processes as a framework.
For further details, please contact the ECLAC Public Information and Web Services Section. E-mail: dpisantiago@cepal.org; telephone: (56 2) 210 2040.
