Corporate Social Responsibility: Current and Future Perspectives in Spain

Abstract

Spain is ranked seventh in the world for CSR implementation (KPMG. International survey of corporate responsibility reporting, 2011). Although the CSR phenomenon reached Spain later than it did the northern European countries, public and private institutions have embraced sustainable development since its introduction there in the late 1990s.

In 1999, the Spanish Association of Investment and Pension Funds (INVERCO), responding to the global CSR trend, introduced the concept of Responsible Social Investment in Spain. In order to include a Spanish company in a fund portfolio, its CSR status had to be known, and it had to meet ethical and transparency requirements. Since then, there have been different initiatives to promote CSR in Spain, such as the White Book (2006), the “Public Policies to promote and develop CSR in Spain” (2007), Good Governance Codes—Olivencia (1998), Aldama (2003) and Conthe (2006), Equality Law (2007) and the Sustainable Economy Law (2011).

In 2011, the number of Spanish companies committed to aligning their operations and strategies with the principles of the UN Global Compact in the areas of human rights, labor, environment and anti-corruption, and which presented the Communication on Progress, increased 115 %, reaching 973. Although small businesses represent 99 % of Spanish enterprises, they represent 36 % of this number.

This paper takes into account the differences in CSR across Europe and focuses on Spain, explaining its historical development of CSR, its initiatives to promote it, socio-economic factors that influence CSR, and the practice of CSR by Spanish businesses. In order to make proposals for CSR in the future, a better understanding of how businesses are developing CSR in each country, their motivations for doing so, how consumers value it, and whether CSR affects corporate performance is needed.