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Terms beginning with letters N through S
A non-governmental organisation (NGO) is an organisation of civil society which champions social, environmental or economic interests independently of government or party-based institutions. NGOs are important stakeholders for enterprises and government institutions.
Founded in 1961, the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an international association of currently 30 nations. OECD members are committed to democracy and a free market economy. Comprised almost exclusively of industrialised nations, this organisation advocates fostering long-term, sustainable economic growth, jobs and global trade. The OECD also offers a platform for the exchange of international examples of best practice. It is considered to be one of the most reliable sources for comparative statistics and a research centre for economic and social trends.
In the area of corporate responsibility, the OECD has anchored principles for responsible corporate dealings in its guidelines for multinational companies.
The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises are joint recommendations developed by member states of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and several non-member states (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Estonia, Lithuania) regarding responsible, legally-compliant corporate conduct in connection with foreign investment. The Guidelines are voluntary and not legally binding. The individual governments foster compliance with the Guidelines. In the event of a violation, a complaint against the company can be lodged with the National Contact Point that the government of the respective country has set up. The National Contact Point in Germany is attached to the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology.
OHSAS 18001 is an internationally-recognised standard for certifying occupational health and safety management systems (OHSAS: occupational health and safety assessment system). It was developed analogously to the ISO 14001 and ISO 9001 standards by a group of leading certification and standardisation organisations and helps enterprises avoid work accidents and meet requirements in the employee health and safety field. OHSAS management systems can be audited by experts. A certificate is issued to companies that pass their audit.
oikos International is an international project-driven student organisation for sustainable management. It was established at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland in 1998 and is currently active at 19 universities around the world, including six in Germany. Its mission is to strengthen occupational competence for sustainable development among tomorrow's decision-makers in trade and industry. To accomplish this, oikos works to increase economics students' awareness for sustainability opportunities and foster their ability to analyse long-term economic trends and implement sustainability-driven innovation on an entrepreneurial basis. oikos also advocates establishing the institutional conditions needed for this at economics faculties by integrating sustainability issues into research and teaching.
The Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes (PEFC) is an umbrella organisation which endorses national certification systems for the sustainable management of forests throughout the world. The PEFC process was launched in 1998 by European woodland owners together with wood industry representatives. Its content is based on the international resolutions adopted in the wake of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. The PEFC Council (PEFCC) was officially established in Paris, France, in 1999. The PEFCC provides the framework for endorsing national certification systems and initiatives. The PEFCC's Technical Document defines the requirements for forest certification systems and standards that must be fulfilled at national level in order to receive PEFC endorsement. More than 200 million hectares of woodlands are currently managed on the basis of PEFC standards worldwide (as of 2007).
Public private partnership (PPP) refers to collaboration between public bodies (such as municipalities or national governments) and enterprises that is undertaken for the purpose of discharging tasks that were previously the exclusive domain of the public sector such as the water supply, education and infrastructure. In public private partnerships, private businesses provide funding, expertise and services to ease the burden on public authorities. Critics of PPPs maintain that this extends private enterprises' sphere of influence into the sphere of government tasks.
Product responsibility is understood as the obligation that is incumbent on enterprises to bear responsibility for the negative environmental and social effects that are generated in the procurement of the necessary raw materials and in the production, transport, use and recycling of their products. Product responsibility is primarily concerned with ensuring that consumers do not suffer harm or injury through the use of a particular product. The meaning of this term has however been expanded in recent years. Attention should now be paid as early as the product development phase to ensuring resource-conserving production and to recycling properties so that the product can be recycled or disposed of in an environmentally-friendly way after its useful life is over (see also life-cycle analysis). Product responsibility also extends to supplier activities. The respective company must ensure that its suppliers comply with environmental and social standards.
PROGRESS stands for Community Programme for Employment and Social Solidarity. PROGRESS is an EU programme to help Member States implement the European Employment Strategy. It runs from 2007 - 2013 and flanks the European Social Fund. PROGRESS financially assists the implementation of the European Union's objectives in the employment and social affairs fields and, in doing so, contributes to achieving the relevant goals laid down in the Lisbon Strategy. In the areas employment, social inclusion and protection, working conditions, non-discrimination and gender equality, PROGRESS concentrates on conducting analyses (such as studies on occupational health and safety), awareness-raising and dissemination (such as continuing training for politicians and members of legal professions) and on supporting the primary players (by, for example, providing financial assistance for EU-wide non-governmental organisation networks that work to eliminate social exclusion and discrimination).
A quality management system (QMS) regulates how the different tasks in a company that are connected with maintaining quality are anchored at organisational and personnel level. A QMS is part of the superordinate management system. The QMS lays down planning activities, methods, procedures and resources that serve the development, implementation, fulfilment and assessment of the stipulated quality. One example of an internationally-recognised standard for quality management systems is ISO 9001.
A quality label is a logogram or pictograph that identifies certain properties of products, services or manufacturing methods. Quality labels provide, for example, information about a product's quality, about its environmental or health-related safety or about compliance with socially-responsible and environmentally-compatible production processes. Such labels are usually based on a comprehensive and objective control and certification system in order to ensure the credibility of the information that the particular label conveys.
A ranking is the result of a process in which the performance of different organisations in a particular area is compared and then listed in an ascending or descending order. A prerequisite for this is a rating of the individual organisation on the basis of quantifiable performance indicators which was conducted on a systematic basis and is therefore comparable and reliable. Various rankings are in use in the area of sustainability and corporate responsibility. For example, a rating and ranking process was used to determine which companies were to be listed in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes. The Institut für ökologische Wirtschaftsforschung (IÖW) and future e.V. conduct ratings of sustainability reports. The results of their ratings are also published in the form of rankings.
The Rat für Nachhaltige Entwicklung - Council for Sustainable Development - was established by the German government in 2001 and is currently comprised of 13 persons from public life. The Council for Sustainable Development advises the German government on matters involving sustainability policy. Its tasks include contributing to the progressive development of the government's Sustainability Strategy by developing suggestions on objectives and indicators, and proposing projects for the implementation of the Sustainability Strategy. The Council fosters public dialogue on sustainability, delineates the implications of social action and discusses approaches for solutions.
The Council issued in 2006 recommendations on corporate responsibility which it addressed to the German government and trade and industry. It also conducted a multi-stakeholder forum on the subject of corporate responsibility in 2007. In addition, the Council publishes information and tips on ethical consumption in its brochure "Der Nachhaltige Warenkorb" (The Sustainable Shopping Basket). The most recent edition was issued in November 2008.
Rating is the process of assessing organisations or governments on the basis of not only economic but also social and environmental criteria. The results are assigned to rating classes or scales. It is fundamentally necessary to differentiate between internal and external ratings. Internal ratings are conducted by the enterprises - banks for example - themselves. By contrast, an external rating has the advantage of being an independent - and therefore more credible - evaluation. Classical rating agencies for rating the financial strength of organisations and governments include Standard & Poor¿s, Moody¿s and Fitch. Some rating agencies have specialised in rating and ranking enterprises solely on the basis of corporate social responsibility criteria. Sustainability indexes such as the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes and the FTSE4Good are the results of this type of rating process which is conducted by rating agencies such as SAM, oekom and EIRiS.
Responsible Care is a voluntary global initiative in which companies in the chemical industry in 53 countries have agreed to work together to continually improve conditions for health and environmental protection and for the safety of their employees and neighbouring areas. The programme has existed in Germany since 1991 and is attached to the German chemical industry association VCI. Chemical enterprises in Germany are working under the Responsible Care banner in six of the initiative's thematic fields: environmental protection, product responsibility, occupational health, occupational safety, transport safety and stakeholder dialogue.
Risk management has the task of systematically compiling data on and assessing an organisation's internal and external risks. Controlling and managing measures to minimise or eliminate risks is also a risk management task. Risks can have consequences for a company's profits, reputation and continued existence. Examples of internal risks include liquidity risks, employee strikes, product defects, inadequate delivery capacity and accidents that have an environmental impact. In addition, infringements of environmental or social standards that take place in the supply chain can also give rise to risks for an enterprise. External risks involve for example the elements, climate change and economic crises.
The Round Table Codes of Conduct (Codes-of-Conduct Round Table) is a multi-stakeholder forum that fosters voluntary codes of conduct in German companies that have production facilities or suppliers in developing or newly industrialising countries. It was initiated by the Federal Ministry for Economic Development and Co-operation together with representatives of companies and industry associations, non-governmental organisations, trade unions and government organisations. Compliance with social standards is to be stepped up, particularly among suppliers in developing and newly industrialising countries, by implementing codes of conduct on an effective basis. This forum also conducts and evaluates measures and projects and develops recommendations for implementing, monitoring and verifying codes of conduct. Enterprises use it as a platform for exchanging information on past experience and to inject momentum into their own approaches, such as in public private partnerships.
SA8000 is a standard for ensuring humane working conditions in the workplace. It was published in 1997 by Social Accountability International (SAI) and subsequently revised in 2001. SA8000 is based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and various labour standards of the International Labour Organization (ILO). It fosters the development of social management systems. Experts inspect workplaces on a regular basis in order to ensure a continual improvement in working conditions.
Social Accountability International (SAI) is an international non-profit organisation located in New York, USA. SAI's aim is to improve working conditions in workplaces around the world. For this purpose, SAI developed the SA8000 social standard in collaboration with numerous representatives from non-governmental organisations, enterprises, trade unions, standards organisations and certification organisations.
A social management system (SMS) is a system to ensure the observance of human rights and occupational safety standards in individual companies. This type of social management system is generally based on internationally-recognised regulatory mechanisms such as the core labour standards of the International Labour Organization (ILO), the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations and the SA8000 social standard. Internal company processes and/or processes further upstream in the supply chain are audited with the help of an SMS to determine any breaches of these rules and regulations. Such audits can be conducted by the company's own employees or by independent experts. In the event that breaches are ascertained, plans for measures are developed to, for example, continually improve occupational safety.
Social management systems are, for example, relevant for European enterprises that buy goods from developing or newly industrialising countries where child labour, forced labour or sweatshops exist.
sneep stands for student network for ethics in economics and practice. This student network is part of the German Business Ethics Network (DNWE) and has local chapters in more than 30 university towns in Germany. sneep's aim is to establish economic and business ethics at universities and to foster a dialogue between academia and practitioners on the ground. To achieve this, sneep offers a communications and information platform for interested parties, conducts information campaigns at universities and helps find internships and postgraduate positions..
Social entrepreneurship refers to the use of entrepreneurial thinking to achieve social aims such as eliminating poverty or improving the education system. Although it is possible to make a profit in the process, it is not inevitable. In contrast to conventional enterprises, social entrepreneurs measure their success by the impact their activities have on their social environment. Their approach is 'entrepreneurial' because of their use of innovative, systemic and scalable means to solve a societal problem which existing systems are unable to solve or for which systems do not exist. A growing number of organisations have been established in recent years that are geared exclusively to fostering social entrepreneurs.
Sponsoring is the provision of money, physical resources or services by a company to support events, individual persons or institutions. This support is coupled with some form of consideration. In return for its support, sponsors are offered a platform for self-promotion purposes that can be used to achieve their corporate communication goals. Culture sponsoring, sport sponsoring and social sponsoring are typical forms of sponsoring. Social sponsoring involves sponsoring activities in the social and charitable fields. More recent forms of sponsoring in Germany include research and university sponsoring. Sponsoring activities are often an element of corporate citizenship.
Socially responsible investment (SRI) is special kind of investment that is aimed at fostering corporate responsibility. In addition to taking financial aspects into account when deciding on investments, investors who follow the SRI principle consider first and foremost the impact their investments will have on the environment and society. This provides listed enterprises an incentive for taking environmental protection, product responsibility and human rights aspects into consideration in their corporate processes. Some SRI investors categorically refuse to invest in companies that operate in areas involving alcohol, tobacco, gambling, arms / the military or abortion.
Stakeholder is an umbrella term for individuals, groups and organisations that are affected by or can influence economic and political activities and decisions. Stakeholders include employees, consumers, shareholders, suppliers, non-governmental organisations and the municipality where a company operates. A responsible organisation conducts a dialogue with relevant stakeholders in order to obtain information about their demands and be able to respond to them.
The term standard generally means a standardised, widely-used rule or norm that defines the properties of products, services or processes. This definition of standard is particularly used in the technology and methodology fields. However it is also used in connection with human rights and environmental protection. For example, use of the German 'Bio-Siegel' organic food label is contingent on fulfilling a standard. Other examples of standards include the ISO 9001 and 14001 certification systems and SA8000.
The independent Stiftung Warentest foundation was established in 1964 by order of parliament to provide consumers assistance in assessing goods and services. The Berlin-based consumer protection organisation conducts comparative tests on products so that they can be assessed objectively on the basis of quality, safety and sustainability criteria. The list of aspects to be examined in the individual tests was expanded a few years ago to include the production of the individual products and the manufacturer's level of corporate social responsibility. For its tests, Stiftung Warentest employees buy products anonymously on the market, have them tested on the basis of pre-determined criteria and then rate them on a scale from 'very good' to 'poor'. The findings are subsequently published on the Internet and on a monthly basis in the magazines "test" and "Finanztest". Manufacturers are permitted to use a corresponding label on their tested products that provides transparent information on the test results.
In terms of a company's supply chain, suppliers are those firms from which the company buys services, raw materials and subproducts or finished products for processing. Suppliers are often located in developing or newly industrialising countries where wage levels are comparatively low and compliance with social or environmental standards is not necessarily ensured. A typical feature of responsible corporate governance is that companies that practise RCG also assume responsibility for compliance with environmental and social standards in their supply chains. To accomplish this, they obligate their suppliers to observe social and environmental standards and monitor their compliance.
The term supply chain refers to the process in which a product (or service) is produced, starting with the extraction of the raw materials used and extending to the end consumer's receipt of the product. Depending on how complex the product is, a supply chain can encompass a handful of companies or entire global supplier networks (as in the case of automobile production). In conjunction with corporate social responsibility, enterprises are also obligated to assume responsibility for the supply chain's compliance with environmental and social standards.
The term sustainability originally comes from the forestry field and refers to the use of a renewable system in a way that preserves its fundamental properties and allows it to regenerate itself by natural means. A broader interpretation of sustainability as a state of global balance emerged in the 1970s in the course of the discussion over finite resources. In 1987, the Brundtland Report defined the concept of sustainable development as "development that meets the needs of the future without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Agenda 21 added to this original meaning of preserving environmental resources the obligation to manage social resources responsibly as well. The so-called three-pillar model of sustainability was developed on the basis of these three - economic, environmental and social - dimensions, in other words, on the basis of three equally important dimensions that provide a solid basis for viable, long-term development.
All three dimensions assign companies a high degree of responsibility when it comes to establishing and preserving the foundations for a viable society through sustainable management.
Sustainability indexes such as the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes and the FTSE4Good Indexes measure and track the financial development of companies that were added to the respective index because they meet certain criteria for corporate responsibility. Fields covered by these criteria include environmental protection, anti-corruption mechanisms and the observance of social standards in supply chains. Such indexes are based on performance assessments of the individual company and make it possible to identify the leading company in the respective sector. These indexes are used not only by investors for 'responsible investment' purposes. Interested persons and groups can also use them to compare companies with regard to corporate social responsibility.
Sustainability reports are used not only by companies but also by organisations and municipalities to document socially-responsible and environmentally-friendly activities and achievements relating to sustainable development. Sustainability reports evolved out of the environmental reports published in the 1990s. Together with management reports, they comprise an important element in a company's information policies and ensure transparency vis-à-vis the interested public. Companies usually report on their progress on an annual basis and in printed form. The Internet is used as a supplementary - and in some cases sole - platform for this.
The term sweatshop refers to a workplace where people must work under conditions that violate international labour standards and are in some cases inhumane.
Such workplaces, for example:
Child labour and forced labour can also occur in sweatshops. Further, sweatshops ignore fundamental workers' rights such as the right of association, collective bargaining agreements and protection against unwarranted dismissal. Sweatshops are to be found primarily in developing and newly industrialising countries and in sectors with large shares of manual labour (such as the textile industry).
Initiatives such as the Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI) have set themselves the goal of improving working conditions in these countries and sectors.