How can corporate social responsibility be encouraged in Québec?
According to our experience this involves finding concrete courses of action that can be adapted to any type of company.
In a recent blog, we addressed corporate social responsibility, especially in small and medium enterprises (SME).
The objective was to share measures deployed at Strategia Conseil and show that it is possible for an SME to adopt corporate social responsibility.
If this article drew your attention, you might like to know the next step for starting a CSR approach in your company.
Encouraging corporate social responsibility; the simplest solution is often the best!
If you want to transform your good intentions into action, plan to deploy the simplest possible policy.
At Strategia Conseil, this translated into adopting the 1% rule.
Every year, we undertake to pay 1% of our turnover to social or societal projects.
We don’t claim to have originated this principle. In 1985, Patagonia undertook to pay 1% of its sales for preservation of the environment. In 2002, these founders, Yvon Chouinard and Craig Mathews, created an organization to encourage other companies to do the same: 1% For The Planet.
Since then, the same principle has extended to social causes through organizations such as Pledge 1% in the United States and The Upside Foundation in Canada.
The simplicity of giving 1% is that it can take several forms:
- 1% of equity
- 1% of your employees’ time
- 1% of your goods or services
- 1% of your profits (or of your sales)
The above-mentioned organizations also offer guidelines in this sense.
How does the 1% rule apply at Strategia Conseil?
This year we chose to offer 1% of our time. For example, this transforms into support for the Centre CASA therapy centre. Strategia’s team is working voluntarily with the management of this centre to make their renovation project a reality.
Centre CASA is a non-profit organization, with the mission of offering specialized services in the prevention and treatment of dependencies. We also took advantage of our online presence (social media, newsletter, etc.) to offer visibility to non-profit organizations that are desperately seeking to make themselves known or find funding (e.g. Québec Federation for Autism, which promoted Autism Month in April).
Simple but effective actions to give time to benefit causes we care about.
Conclusion
In our opinion, the 1% principle is the simplest way to engage in corporate social responsibility in Québec.
This simple rule concretizes your social commitment and integrates CSR into your company’s DNA. To do this, you only have to follow these three steps.
- Undertake to give 1%;
- Determine in which form (equity, time, goods, profits);
- Choose the cause you will support.
