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Christian Scharff
Corporate Social Responsibility
The president of IMS Luxembourg is optimistic that the crisis can provide an opportunity for a return to core values in business behaviour.
“Maybe the future is arriving faster than foreseen” Duncan Roberts (text), Julien Becker (photos)
As the current crisis developed, many observers feared that the battle for short-term survival would be fought at the expense of long-term priorities. The thinking was that environmental and social responsibilities would fall victim to the need to maintain cash flow and retain jobs. But Christian Scharff, president of IMS Luxembourg (Institut pour le Mouvement Sociétal, Luxembourg), argues that adopting the behaviour of good corporate social responsibility is actually sound management despite, or perhaps because of, the crisis. IMS celebrated its second anniversary in April. Why did the six founding members think it necessary to create a formal structure for corporate social responsibility in Luxembourg? “Firstly there was no organisation in Luxembourg to support companies willing to engage in corporate social responsibility. And there has been a trend, for at least a decade, for CSR – which stems from pressure, and clear expectations, from customers and employees. Two years after the creation of IMS we are even more convinced that such an association is needed to help and support companies looking for best practice in this area. The problem is that not so many people immediately understand what CSR is. It covers a very wide scope of activities and concerns – from transport
and health to environment and time accommodation. But we are not trying to reinvent the wheel. We are convinced there are best practices already being carried out within companies, so we need to share that. Our objective is to be a toolbox for corporate social responsibility. What are the unique advantages and disadvantages of creating such a network in Luxembourg? How much was the structure of IMS inspired by that of the French organisation IMS-Entreprendre pour la Cité? “We have no formal association with IMS-Entreprendre pour la Cité. We just asked if we could take over part of their name. We have closer links with CSR Europe, a sort of umbrella association which is a huge European toolbox to which all our members have access via the internet. This provides great added value. We decided from the beginning to adapt our structure to the scale of Luxembourg and its market. We have two pillars, one for so-called big companies, and another for small- and mediumsized companies. Each has its own working group taking care of the needs of its affiliates. For instance, the big employers are going to tackle the problem of mobility in 2009. The problem is that there are plenty of initiatives, but they are often restricted to the city, or, if on a national scale, they stop at the border. And we have 150,000 people coming to Luxembourg from the Greater } 98 Region every day. paperjam | Mai 2009 | management
“Our objective is to be a toolbox for corporate social responsibility.”