10.08.2004
Newsletter 04/04
N E W S L E T T E R - 04/04
Dear reader,
we are pleased to present this first issue of our free e-mail newsletter in English with some selected reports. This new service is currently being set up and will be expanded soon. Currently we publish the Institute’s newsletter each quarter to keep you abreast of the latest environmental research at the Institute for Applied Ecology. We plan to publish it more frequently at a later point. You will also learn what the Institute’s position is in current environmental policy debates and what committees and commissions the scientists participate in. This issue presents PROSA, a tried and tested method of sustainability management in companies. We also explore the role of the private sector and its increasing social and ecological responsibility in society. Wishing you pleasant reading,
Yours Katja Kukatz 10 August 2004
CONTENT
F O C A L T H E M E S
- PROSA: For strategic analysis of products and product portfolios
- How effective is Corporate Social Responsibility?
N E W S L E T T E R A R C H I V E
C O N T A C T
PROSA: For strategic analysis of products and product portfolios
Tried and proven sustainability management method / New homepage: www.PROSA.org
A key task of modern corporate management is to develop products in a sustainable fashion, taking not only
economic aspects into account, but also environmental and social ones. Öko-Institut – Institute for Applied
Ecology – has developed a method to solve this task: PROSA, Product Sustainability Assessment. PROSA
facilitates the strategic analysis of product portfolios, products and services. The method is similarly suited
for applications in integrated product policy and in dialogue processes. A major project is currently in progress
to refine the methodology and align it with related international approaches. A new project homepage –
www.PROSA.org – provides comprehensive information on
the state of methodology development and project outcomes.
PROSA is already tried and proven in practice. ‘Core tools’ support its separate phases. PROSA builds
upon a set of well-established individual tools that are already deployed in most large companies. The five core
tools are: Product portfolio analysis, megatrend scenarios, consumer research, environmental life-cycle
assessment (LCA) and life-cycle costing. Two further core tools – Social Assessment (German: Socio-Analyse)
and ProfitS, an evaluation tool – have been conceptualized and now being refined within the context of the
PROSA methodology development project supported by the German Research Ministry (BMBF) within its
Social-Ecological Research Programme (SÖF).
Öko-Institut has produced an international synopsis of fifty methods and concepts focussing on the sustainability
analysis of products. This led to two main findings: First, most approaches neglect the social dimension. Second,
few methods have been tested in practice. Although many approaches refer formally or terminologically to
sustainability, the environmental dimension continues to dominate, combined in some instances with the economic
dimension. Very few methods can be classed as ‘true’ sustainability analyses. These are mainly
methods applied within specific companies, product certification schemes and financial rating methods. Even in
these cases, however, analysis of the social dimension remains less differentiated and routine than that of
environmental and economic aspects.
Examination of products across their entire life cycle ‘from cradle to grave’ has become widespread
practice. Similarly, the fundamental question of utility has now been taken up by many approaches. The methods
themselves, however, mainly use ‘classic’ individual tools such as market and trend analysis, LCA or
life-cycle costing. Analysis of social aspects is scant. There is no established tool for this. The same applies
to other fields such as national sustainability strategies, corporate sustainability reporting and related
schemes such as the Global Compact, product and quality labels, or financial rating.
If at all, social aspects are analysed in these methods by taking a stakeholder approach. This categorizes social
and societal impacts in terms of the affected stakeholders, such as suppliers, employees, clients, the public,
competitors or shareholders. Approaches seeking to assign social aspects to specific stages of the –
environmental – life cycle and thus to produce a clustering are essentially similar. More frequent is the
exclusive application of consumer research – amounting to very limited stakeholder integration – or
expert judgements of case-specific ‘issues’. There continues to be a lack of comprehensive and
systematic social assessment of entire product life cycles.
Integration of social aspects is thus now the key task for further development of sustainability analysis in
general and PROSA in particular. The Life Cycle Initiative set up by SETAC and UNEP takes the same view. Within that context,
Öko-Institut is involved in the newly established Task Force on “Integration of social aspects into
LCA”. rg
Contact:
Dr. Rainer
Grießhammer
Öko-Institut e.V. Freiburg
Sustainable Products & Material Flows Division
[back to the index]
How effective is Corporate Social Responsibility?
Öko-Institut analyses the contribution of voluntary business activities towards EU sustainability goals
Five years ago Kofi Annan, UN Secretary-General, initiated the “Global Compact”. Since then the
alliance of UN agencies, private enterprises and representatives of governments, trade unions and NGOs tackling
the theme of corporate social responsibility has grown considerably: In June about 200 business leaders of the
1700 participating enterprises and as many representatives of governments and international experts convened in
the “Global Compact Leaders Summit” in New York to discuss the future of Corporate Social
Responsibility (CSR). How effective Corporate Social Responsibility is as a policy instrument will now be
investigated in the European research project: “Rhetorics and Realities – Analysing Corporate Social
Responsibility in Europe” (RARE) coordinated by Öko-Institut – Institute for Applied Ecology.
Participation in the “Global Compact” involves a commitment by companies to comply voluntarily with
ten principles concerning environmental protection, human and labour rights as well as anti-corruption, the
latter being just adopted at the Summit. The Global Compact is only one example of the growing importance of
Corporate Social Responsibility. The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, the Global Reporting
Initiative, social and ecological investment funds and the integration of stakeholders into corporate
policy-making are further initiatives put forward in the past years, often at civil society’s
instigation.
In the research project “RARE”, scientists of seven European partners analyse existing CSR activities
of associations and enterprises in different economic sectors: the oil industry, the banking sector as well as
the fisheries and fish processing industries. Using a specially developed method – CSR Impact Assessment
– the rhetoric of CSR shall be separated from factual impacts. The scientists strive to evaluate the
contribution of companies’ CSR measures to achievement of the European Union’s policy goals in four
areas of sustainable development – environmental protection, resource management, gender equality and the
fight against bribery. In addition, the impact of CSR instruments on the enterprises themselves will be
scrutinized. Among other aspects, corporate development, competitiveness and innovative capacity will be looked
into.
By means of in-depth case studies the researchers strive to filter out success factors that deliver particularly
successful Corporate Social Governance in selected companies. Small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) will be
considered, too. Moreover, the project addresses the relevance of CSR activities to the integration of the new
Member States into the EU. Finally, the contribution of CSR instruments to addressing societal problems will be
considered in relation to the problem-solving capacity of public policy instruments.
The project aims to combine theoretical and applied research. Different conceptions and instruments of corporate
responsibility will be included in the research design. This will address questions such as which policy areas
are suitable to be tackled by CSR and what conditions within an enterprise foster successful CSR schemes. Another
issue to be looked into is whether a political framework – voluntary or mandatory – is necessary to
make CSR an effective instrument.
The project will conclude with the formulation of policy recommendations for the EU and national governments.
The project “Rhetoric and Realities – Analysing Corporate Social Responsibility in Europe”
(RARE) is funded within the EU’s Sixth Framework Programme, Sub-programme ‘Citizens and governance in
a knowledge based society’ (CIT2-CT-2004-506043). The research consortium consists of: Öko-Institut e.V. (coordinator, Germany), Fridtjof
Nansen Institute (FNI, Norway), Stockholm
Environment Institute (SEI, Sweden),
Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM,
Italy), Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BUTE, Hungary), the Institute for
Socio-ecological Research (ISOE, Germany)
and Peter Wilkinson (United Kingdom), Project Consultant to Transparency International for the “Business Principles
for Countering Bribery”. fw
Contact:
Öko-Institut e.V Freiburg
Environmental Law Division
Coordinator Regine Barth (Project
Manager)
Franziska Wolff
[back to the index]
C O N T A C T
Publisher
Öko-Institut e.V.
Institute for Applied Ecology (Öko-Institut)
"Newsletter (Öko-Institut e.V. English ed.)"
ISSN 1614-5283
Editorial office
Department of Public Relations & Communication
Christiane Rathmann
Katja Kukatz
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