Social Responsibility Means Having Principles

To Improve the Lives of Everyone

What Are the Principles of Social Responsibility ?

1. Environmental Restoration

   The organization works to protect and restore the environment and promote sustainable development with products, process, services, and other activities. It is committed to minimizing the use of energy and natural resources and decreasing waste and harmful emissions. The organization integrates these standards into day to day operations.

2. Ethics

   The organization develops and implements ethical standards and practices in dealing with all of the organizations stakeholders. The organization's commitment to ethical behavior is widely communicated in an explicit statement and is rigorously upheld.

3. Accountability

    The organization acknowledges that many constituents have legitimate interests in its activities and discloses information in a timely manner so that stakeholders can make informed decisions. Stakeholder need to know takes precedence over inconvenience and cost to the organization.

4. Empowerment

    The organization balances the interests of employees, customers, investors, suppliers, affected communities and other stakeholders in strategic objectives as well as day to day management and investment decisions. The organization manages its resources conscientiously and effectively, seeking to enhance both financial and human capital.

5. Financial Performance and Results

    The organization compensates providers of capital with a competitive rate of return while protecting the organization's assets and the sustainability of these returns. The organization's policies and practices are established to enhance long-term growth.

6. Workplace Standards

    The organization engages in human resource management practices that promote personal and professional employee development, diversity at all levels, and empowerment. The organization regards employees as valued partners in the enterprise, respecting their right to fair labor practices, competitive wages and benefits, and a safe, harassment free, family friendly work environment.

7. Collaborative Relationships

    The organization is fair and honest with business partners, including suppliers, distributors, licensees, and agents. The organization promotes and monitors the social responsibility of business partners.

8. Quality Products and Services

   The organization identifies and responds to the needs and rights of its customers and the ultimate consumers. It works to provide the highest levels of product and service value, including a strong commitment to integrity, customer satisfaction and safety.

9. Community Involvement

    The organization fosters an open relationship with the community in which it operates that is sensitive to the community's culture and needs. The organization plays a proactive, cooperative, and where appropriate, collaborative role in making the community a better place to live and conduct business.

What Practices Are Socially Responsible ?

A. Environmental Restoration

   1. The organization's mission and business plan supports

" sustainable development ". This means development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

   2. The organization works for continuous improvement in the efficiency with which it uses all forms of energy and materials; in reducing its consumption of water and other natural resources; and in its emissions of hazardous substances.

   3. The organization creates and funds explicit programs and mechanisms for monitoring its energy, water, materials use, and emissions into the environment. It regularly communicates to its stakeholders reports on the results of these practices and include strategies for improvement.

   4. The organization develops an enterprise-wide system of environmental management that translates its environmental mission into the organization's business plan, with objectives and procedures for evaluating progress.

   5. The organization includes environmental factors and audits in its performance evaluation systems for individuals and departments.

   6. The organization adverse designs products, services, processes and buildings to minimize adverse environmental impacts.

B. Ethics

   1. The organization creates an accessible ethics statement that articulates the behavior expected of all employees, agents and business partners.

   2. The organization establishes an Ethics Committee, including a mix of stakeholders, such as directors, senior managers, hourly workers, union representatives and leaders of community organizations, to develop, communicate, and monitor compliance with the ethics statement.

   3. The organization undertakes benchmarking efforts to compare its ethical performance with that of comparable organizations.

   4. The organization rewards excellent performance and penalizes acts contrary to the letter and spirit of the ethics statement even when in pursuit of financial objectives.

   5. The organization periodically reviews its policies to ensure that financial incentives do not create pressure for employees or senior management to commit misdeeds or unethical behavior.

   6. The organization provides all employees with ethics education that demonstrates how ethical values apply to the daily work environment, how unethical values have ruined organizations and how ethical dilemmas may be resolved. It integrates ethics based decision making into all training.

C. Accountability

   1. The organization respects the right to know of stakeholders and balances it with the organization's need to protect intellectual capital.

   2. The organization broadly identifies that interests of its stakeholders and regularly assesses their informational needs.

   3. The organization provides timely information in clear and accessible language to allow informed decisions by stakeholders.

   4. The organization regularly assesses its citizenship, providing measurable and independently verified evidence to support any claims regarding achievement of its ethical, social, and environmental objectives.

   5. The organization encourages communication through face to face meetings with stakeholders, such as volunteering with community advisory panels, neighborhood associations, and advocacy groups.

   6. The organization informs employees and other key stakeholders about any significant violation of organizational policies, adverse decisions by regulators or courts, and the results of other analyses of enterprise activity.

   7. The organization provides adequate, accurate information on labels, packages, and operation manuals and responds to other information requests related to workplace safety, lawsuits, environmental emissions, pay equity, and other issues.

D. Empowerment

   1. The organization formerly integrates stakeholder management into its governing philosophy.

   2. The organization adopts an explicit statement and governance code, along with effective implementation strategies and performance metrics emphasizing fair process and accountability to stakeholders.

   3. The board and management embrace a role of " stakeholder trustee, " while protecting long-term shareholder value.

   4. The organization incorporates and balances stakeholder expectations and concerns into its objectives and strategic planning.

   5. The organization makes stakeholder impact a component of performance evaluation throughout the enterprise.

   6. The organization's governing body takes responsibility  for assessing, managing, and reporting the overall solvency, stability, and prospects of the enterprise.

   7. The organization's governing body ensures that it is fully informed about the impact of their products, services, and act ivies

on its stakeholders and strives for continuous improvement.

   8. The organization provides mechanisms and opportunities for regular consultation and communications among board, management, employees, and other stakeholders.

   9. Senior executives of the organization are accessible to employees and other stakeholders.

   10. The governing body evaluates CEO and senior-management performance against the achievement of social, non-financial, and financial performance factors, and compensation is based on these performance measures.

   11. The governing body and senior managers expressly recognize their responsibility to place the interests of stakeholders as a whole above the exclusive interests of management and the board.

   12. The governing body recognizes the importance of fair process in making decisions and communicating them throughout the organization.

E. Financial Performance and Results

   1. The organization provides its investors, including lenders, with fair and attractive financial returns.

   2. The organization aligns financial and non-financial objectives and does not allow profit seeking to undermine a commitment to balancing the interests of all stakeholders.

   3. The organization reports to its stakeholders regularly on progress achieved against its financial, non-financial, and social performance targets. These reports communicate both successes achieved and shortfalls remaining, and provide an overview of board and management strategies for improvement.

   4. The organization provides investors with disclosures of historical and forward looking information and easy access to the organization commensurate with the need to protect proprietary information.

   5. The organization provides stakeholders with opportunities to invest in the enterprise.

   6. The organization promptly responds to investor requests, suggestions, complaints and formal resolutions.

   7. The organization's own external investments, if any, are made consistent with its mission and ethical statement.

F. Workplace Standards

   1. The organization has written policies containing measurable objectives to promote empowerment and diversity in the work force. Performance against those measures is monitored and reported regularly to the board of directors and senior management.

   2. The organization places special emphasis on maintaining the health and safety of its employees. A written statement is provided to all employees that details the procedures for risk reduction and monitoring.

   3. The organization does not tolerate discrimination in hiring, salary, promotion, training, advancement opportunities, or termination of any employee on the basis of gender, race, age, ethnicity, physical disability, sexual orientation, political affiliation, or religion. The organization pays comparable pay for comparable work.

   4. The organization meets or exceeds all internationally recognized labor standards and conventions, including those concerning freedom of association, right to engage in collective bargaining, discrimination, minimum age and living wages.

   5. The organization maximizes the participation of employees in enterprise governance and enlists employees help in improving the work environment.

   6. The organization determines the livable wage for each community in which it operates and sets that wage as the goal for compensating its lowest paid employees. It annually measures progress toward that goal and reports progress to the employees.

   7. The organization solicits employee advice in designing benefit plans that are flexible and portable. Benefits that can be used by lower wage employees are included, such as referral services, flextime and tuition assistance.

   8. The organization provides commensurate treatment for part-time employees regarding rates of pay, benefits, training and opportunities for promotion. The organization does not accept the health insurance industry limitations on covering part time employees and establishes as a goal the implementation of health insurance benefit plans that provide access to coverage for part-time employees and their families.

   9. The organization provides employee benefits to include the domestic partners of employees, including same sex domestic partners.

   10. The organization offers performance bonuses and profit sharing programs to employees; monthly and quarterly bonuses are instituted to reduce the interval between performance and feedback. Open-book management is practiced and employees are provided assistance in understanding financial statements.

   11. Training opportunities transcend the purely technical or professional to include life skills. The organization attends to the financial well being of employees with seminars on topics such as debt relief, retirement planning, tax assistance, eldercare, and life management.

   12. The organization develops and communicates work-life policies and programs, such as flextime, job sharing and daycare, that support balanced work and personal lives.

   13. The organization conducts regular employee and work-life surveys.

   14. The organization seeks to achieve a participatory, fair process in all situations affecting employees' job security. In job threatening situations, employees are fully briefed and solicited for input and cooperation in such practices as voluntary pay cuts and leave without pay.

   15. The organization offers outplacement services, re-training, and severance benefits if layoffs occur.

   16. The organization monitors the employment practices of its suppliers, distributors, and business partners to encourage alignment with its own employment policies.

G. Collaborative Relationships

   1. The organization selects its business partners in consideration not only of price and quality, but also of social, ethical, and environmental performance.

   2. The organization leverages its purchasing power to encourage business partners to pursue improvement of their own social, ethical, and environmental practices.

   3. The organization shows loyalty to suppliers that are consistently innovative and offer quality products and services at a fair price.

   4. The organization cross markets with valued business partners.

   5. The organization pays promptly, using negotiation and mutual agreement for longer payment cycles.

   6. The organization sets specific targets for utilizing indigenous, disadvantaged and minority owned businesses as joint venture suppliers and partners.

   7. The organization supports enterprises that practice and promote the concept of " fair trade."

H. Quality Products and Services

   1. The organization creates programs to assess the impacts of its products and services on its stakeholders. It is committed to continuous improvement of these impacts at each phase of product development, design, production, and delivery.

   2. The organization strives for increased customer satisfaction by regularly assessing customer needs, developing innovative products and services, and monitoring quality.

   3. The company advertises honestly, within industry and regulatory codes of practice, and abides by explicit standards of advertising and marketing.

   4. The organization adopts policies to promptly and conscientiously honor warranties and guarantees and address consumer complaints, privacy, and solicitation.

   5. The organization's products and services meet or exceed the standards for product safety wherever the products and services are offered.

   6. The organization takes immediate action to recall products if health and safety risks occur.

   7. The organization's packaging contains accurate and understandable product and company information and serves other purposes, such as a communication tool for raising awareness or as

a utilitarian recycled container.

   8. Employee compensation and bonuses are based on non-financial factors such as customer satisfaction.

I. Community Involvement

   1. The organization establishes formal mechanisms to maximize and promote two-way communication with the local communities in which it operates. Where appropriate, the organization collaborates with community members to promote improvements in community health, education, workplace safety, diversity, and economic development.

   2. The community is seen as an important stakeholder in the organization's operations, is considered in decision-making, and kept informed of the organization's operations and plans, and of the impacts of the company's products, services, and activities.

   3. The organization uses its procurement and investment practices to improve local economic and social development. Where possible, it locates operations and investments in undeserved communities to generate employment opportunities.

   4. The organization contributes to the local community through enterprise policies and programs that explicitly encourage enterprise charitable giving, employee volunteerism, and in-kind contributions of goods and services to local organizations.

   5. The organization focuses on at least one critical community issue and uses its financial and political weight to create change.

   6. The organization's employees and managers serve on the boards of local organizations and institutions with a willingness to be involved over time and to leverage their positions in the organization to provide creative in-kind or monetary contributions.

   7. The organization engages its employees and customers in choosing charitable causes.

   8. The organization makes a special effort to train and employ marginalized, minority, and underemployed members of the local community.

   9. The organization enters joint marketing partnerships with community groups to promote socially progressive causes.

For More Information About NASRO Call 781-893-4343 or toll free at 800-638-8113

<< Return to previous page