Il Quadro Politico di riferimento
The Political Reference Frame
The European Commission, with the Green Book, “To promote a European framework for corporate social responsibility” of July 2001 and the following message related to “corporate social responsibility: an enterprises contribution to sustainable development” of July 2002, invited the Member Countries to promote the sensitization and development of CSR in their own territories.

The Ministry of Labour and Social Security, following the instruction of the Commission, constituted a work group fully dedicated to the widening of this theme and to the definition of a common, simple and innovative reference frame: the Social Statement, which Italian enterprises will be able to adopt of their own will (this proposal was presented on the occasion of the Third European Conference about CSR, which took place in Venice the 14th November 2003, during the semester of Italian Presidency at the Council of the European Union).

The Italian Union of Chambers of Commerce (Unioncamere) expressed its interest in the theme of CSR and the 27 November 2003 stipulated with the Ministry of Labour and Social Security the Protocol of Agreement, in which Unioncamere committed itself to support, with its own means and financial resources, initiatives of sensitization and development of the CSR-SC Project, which will be permitted by its own structure, spreading in all national territory through the web of Chambers of Commerce, and by suitable professionals that during the 2004 have been trained at the Bocconi University of Milan.

The Counter CSR, Corporate Social Responsibility, was officially started the 13th December 2004, following the receiving by the Treviso Chamber of Commerce of the Protocol of Agreement, signed between the Ministry of Labour and Social Security and National Unioncamere, the 27th November 2003. Consequently, the Treviso Chamber of Commerce represents the operative arm of National Unioncamere in this project and, from a local point of view, the project is part of the objectives fixed by the strategic axis nr. 3: “to make corporate social ethic an element of recognizability of the productive fabric of the Marca”. This axis is related to the programming and realization of the Strategic Plan of Treviso Province, “ The Marca 2010: a new model of wealth and development”. The efforts of the Body are now directed towards the concrete realization of the reference frame of the Plan, with the target of social, economic and cultural promotion of our provincial economic system.

The concept of Social Responsibility and the Projectof the Ministry
Readers are reminded that the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) represents “the integration, on voluntarily basis, made by enterprises, of social and environmental preoccupations in business operations and in their relations with interested parts” (Green Book UE 2001).

The ministerial Project intends to represent this concept in an explicit form, in a course structured at the national level.
An enterprise that adopts a socially responsible behaviour:

• contributes towards creating and maintaining a high reputation;
• guarantees a strong cohesion with stakeholders;
• contributes towards strengthen the brand value, through the development of a stable and lasting relation with consumers/buyers, based on trust and fidelity to the brand;
• creates a better, safer and stimulating working environment ;
• increases enterprises capability of attracting and maintaining a qualified and motivated staff;
• improves the efficiency of corporate management;
• protects from boycotting acts;
• facilitates the access to credit (Basilea 2);
• permits the fruition, in the cases provided by law, of tax exemption and administrative facilitation;
• reduces the firm's risk;
• helps increasing the value for stockholders in the markets in which rating of ethical kind are applied;
• can represent a qualifying element of differentiation to strengthen the competitive marketing;
• increases relations of partnership (and, consequently, it can bring about an increase in sales).

Therefore, every enterprise has a responsibility that goes beyond its realized projects. It is called Social Responsibility and it is commonly abbreviated in CSR. To be socially responsible means to go voluntary beyond the simple respect of rules, investing more in human capital, in the environment and the community. It means to adopt a corporate policy that can conciliate economic objective with social and environmental ones.

The Ministry of Labour and Social Security is dealing with the diffusion of the CSR culture with the CSR-SC Project. This is the Italian answer to the request of the European Commission to theMember Countries of promoting this culture in their respective territories. The objective is to make Europe more competitive, socially united, and capable of a strategy of sustainable development.

The adhesion to the CRS Project allows enterprises:

• to benefit from the advantages already listed, which result from the adoption of a social responsible behaviour;
• to highlight without costs their social responsible behaviours both at the provincial level (through the creation of a special provincial database at the seat of the Chamber), and, in the future, also at national level;
• to be part of a circuit that involves the main national interlocutors for the cultural spread of corporate social responsibility in Italy.

Services of the Counter
The main objective of the Counter is to offer a consulting service for enterprises on social responsibility and to support enterprises in the self-rating activity of CSR performances and in the realization of Social Statement.

Services offered, also through the activation of a special area of the Chamber’s seat are mainly:

• information for enterprises on CSR for all the aspects of corporate social responsibility (from the social balance, to the norms SA 8000, AA1000, Environmental Certification, forms to increase the value of employees and to make the enterprise part of the local reality, etc.);
• support for enterprises to the self-rating activity (drawing up of the Social Statement – set of 20 specific indicators);
• information about possible facilitations, initiatives, fundings that reward the CSR;

Antonio Biasi
From "The Economy of the Trevigian Marca ", April 2005