Is CSR an opportunity for SMEs?

At a time when ethical, social and environmental requirements are to the fore, corporate social responsibility (CSR) clearly becomes a major lever of transition for SMEs facing the upheavals caused by the Covid-19 crisis.

We often say that a crisis acts as an accelerator for change. The coronavirus crisis is no exception. Just as the year 2019 saw environmental and societal considerations become priorities in public opinion, the upheavals caused by Covid-19 are confirming this trend.

According to a survey by the Observatoire Cetelem carried out on 6 May, 57% of French people think that many aspects of their way of life are going to change after lockdown and 53% of them hope to change their habits in favour of responsible consumption. At global level, increasing numbers of speakers have come forward over recent weeks to say that the ‘world afterwards’ should be different from the ‘world before’. In light of this aspiration, corporate social responsibility stands out as an important factor. “By highlighting the importance of the professions that are essential for society to function, the coronavirus crisis has acted as a revelatory force. Never in peace-time have we been so aware of the general interest and the common good. This necessarily impacts on companies in terms of their usefulness, their raison d’être and their place in society. In this context CSR becomes an opportunity to reinvest the values we put into the company and to carry the employees with us in a shared project,” states Estelle Gentilleau, Consultant in Responsible Communication. 

Recognising the value of existing actions

For a company, the CSR approach, widespread from the beginning of the millennium in the economic sphere, consists of integrating social and environmental concerns into its strategy, its business activities and its relationships with stakeholders (customers, suppliers, etc.). 

Reinforced by the Loi Pacte (the Pacte Law), CSR remains voluntary for small businesses, which may see it as an extra constraint. Yet “many Very Small Businesses (VSBs) and Small and Medium Businesses (SMEs) have already, in their practices and ways of working with their colleagues, their service providers, their suppliers, set up actions which come within the CSR framework, without realising they have done so”, adds Estelle Gentilleau. 

To go further, Afnor standard ISO 26000, concerning societal responsibility, acts as a benchmark and provides a course of action to follow. It is not the only one. There are also the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, eco-labels (HQE, AFAQ, B-Corp certification etc.) and more recently, ‘company with a mission’ status introduced by the Pacte Law. 

It should be said that drawing up a roadmap is not always easy. To help SMEs and VSBs go further, there are several support mechanisms in existence, from the ADEME programmes to mechanisms proposed by the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Résonance project, not forgetting the support provided by the CCI (Chamber of Commerce) Bayonne - Pays Basque, which during lockdown saw an increase in requests for information and fresh interest from SMEs and VSBs that were already involved.

A collective approach

This renewed interest in CSR has also been noted by the Lantegiak Association. This club of Basque companies committed to sustainable development has seen its members grow from around sixty before lockdown to nearly one hundred today. They are all signed up to Lantegiak’s CSR charter, a document that proposes focuses for improvement in the societal, environmental, social and territorial areas. “Lantegiak’s particular strength is that it brings together companies with a strong commitment to the local area, whether linguistic, cultural, economic or social. Our aim is that this CSR approach should align with the evolution of the needs of the Pays Basque and help ensure long-term employment in the area,” says Caroline Phillips, President of Lantegiak. To this end, the association uses the sharing of good practice and exchange of ideas between its members, in order to make progress together on complex matters. It also plans to organise regular joint workshops, like the one currently devoted to the ‘post-covid’ update of the Single Document for evaluating professional risk. “Mutual help is one of the keys of success. Carried out jointly, CSR constitutes a lever for worthwhile training over a local area, as well as being a factor that increases productivity and performance in the company.” 

“CSR reinforces motivation in the workforce”

This is the view of Géraldine Gilmas, co-founder and Head of CSR in the Voltaire group (Bidart)

“Responsible production has been one of the Voltaire group’s commitments since it was created. For us, it was an inherent part of our foundation. Right from the beginning, we have always promoted soft skills and the sharing of our values - kindness, ambition, pleasure, respect and humility - when recruiting our workforce, all trained within the company. We have also worked with our suppliers to obtain the least polluting leathers and have favoured short supply chains. We have gradually evolved our approach by calling on Ademe to carry out an improvement diagnosis of our environmental impact under the ‘VSB and SME all-cost Winners’ initiative, which directed us towards improvements we could implement. And above all, we became involved with the eco-design ‘Become’ programme, headed by the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Region, which has led us to take a fresh look at our business model and think about the various aspects that could improve the environmental impact of the products. Among our objectives is developing a new sustainable material from leather offcuts, which represent 60 to 70% of the material used in our saddles. 

CSR also feeds into each everyday act, whether this is changing the type of leather, buying a present for the employees, or making our sales force aware of the importance of eco-driving. Of course, one cannot do everything at the same time, but by adopting a sustainable approach we can create cohesion and reinforce motivation among the workforce, especially in a company like ours, where the average age is under 34. For now, our CSR approach represents another cost to us, but the gains in terms of loyalty and commitment from our employee colleagues more than make up for it.”