Promoting corporate social responsibility in European industrial sectors
The key issues of corporate social responsibility vary from company to company.
For example, enterprises in the retail sector might have to deal with the risk of poor labour standards in their supply chain, while a mining company is more concerned by the need to avoid infringing the human rights of people living near its operations.
Because of this variety, the European Commission supports different CSR initiatives in specific industrial sectors.
Textiles
The Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, based in Pisa, Italy, analysed Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and competitiveness in the textile and clothing supply chain.
Amongst the many findings is the fact that certain aspects of CSR, including the use of voluntary environmental management systems, can support innovation capacity.
To investigate the CSR-competitiveness link, the project team surveyed 270 enterprises from Italy, France and Spain.
On the basis of the analysis, the project partners tested a number of public policy initiatives to further promote CSR amongst small and medium sized textile companies.
Construction
The "Building Responsible Competitiveness" project, lead by Impronta Etica, shows how corporate social responsibility (CSR) can drive competitiveness in the construction industry.
One of the key project outputs is the set of guidelines for CSR in the construction sector 
.
The guidelines offer an in-depth analysis of the benefits of integrating CSR principles in day-to-day business and practical advice in four thematic areas:
- health and safety
- eco-compatibility
- supply chain management
- equal opportunities.
The 18-month initiative involved ten partners from five European countries: Italy, Spain, Austria, Hungary and Portugal.
Chemicals
The prisme2 initiative set out to foster CSR by involving small and medium sized enterprises from chemical sector in Responsible Care – the global chemical industry’s signature CSR programme.
The main output has been a toolbox for SMEs offering a broad range of existing instruments that can help SMEs to manage issues related to Responsible Care and Corporate Social Responsibility.
The project was lead by CEFIC, the European Chemical Industry Council, in cooperation with European Mine, Chemical and Enegergy Workers’ Federation, and national partners in Germany, Greece, the United Kingdom, Slovakia, Cezch Republic and Spain.
Pharmaceutical
The European Commission has launched "The Process on Corporate Social Responsibility in the field of pharmaceuticals" in order to facilitate discussions on ethics and transparency of the sector, and also on non-regulatory conditions for better access to medicines after their marketing authorisation.
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