CSR consultant: essential to your approach?
Corporate Social Responsibility (generally referred to as CSR) is a way for companies to take account of social, environmental, ethical and economic issues.
In most cases, this is done on a voluntary basis, when a company has a genuine desire to become more ethical and sustainable.
In the 90s, the very first CSR consulting firm was created.
Let’s take a look at the role of the CSR consultant and what he or she can contribute to a company’s approach.
Key points of the article
What is corporate social responsibility?
To fully understand the job of a CSR consultant, you first need to know what corporate social responsibility is.
CSR is the application of certain sustainable development issues within a company.
Companies integrate environmental and social concerns into their normal business activities, usually on a voluntary basis.
CSR revolves around several major themes: human rights, the environment, working conditions, community development and consumption.
What is a CSR consultant?
In most cases, a company wishing to invest in sustainable development will call on the services of a CSR consultant, to advise and support the company in question.
The consultant’s role will depend on the company’s choice, and may include diagnosis, (re)definition of CSR strategy, and the design of services or products according to their impact on the environment.
The aim is to help the company meet its environmental, social and economic challenges as effectively as possible.
Each consultant’s approach is tailored to the company and his or her own vision of the profession.
It’s an interesting profession because it’s made up of a wide variety of assignments.
The missions of a CSR consultant
A CSR consultant can work in several different areas:
- He can be self-employed and offer his services to companies.
- He or she may work in a specialized or generalist consultancy with a CSR department.
- He can work in-house at a company.
As far as assignments are concerned, they are diverse and vary from case to case.
A CSR consultant may, for example, be asked to carry out a CSR diagnosis, plan and implement a company’s CSR actions, define CSR objectives, draft reports, define the challenges facing stakeholders and the company, evaluate the results of a CSR strategy, etc.
A CSR consultant can work independently, and/or rely on support tools for diagnosis or implementation (e.g. Mon Entreprise Durable).
What is the ideal profile of a future CSR consultant?
The job of CSR consultant requires the qualities of a traditional consultant (ability to synthesize, analyze, invest intellectually, integrity, respect for corporate confidentiality, etc.) combined with solid knowledge and know-how in CSR and sustainable development.
These can be acquired through training or past experience.
A CSR consultant won’t necessarily be familiar with the company’s business sector, but this will be an asset when it comes to integrating into the company more easily.
Why call on the services of a CSR consultant?
If a company wishes to invest in sustainable development, a CSR professional can help it achieve its objectives. Indeed, for a company manager, the advantages of calling on the services of a CSR consultant are manifold:
- Enhance its commitment to customer confidence by making its CSR approach official, and thus its commitment to sustainable development.
- Structuring a company around various sustainable development issues thanks to precise, high-quality expertise.
- Improve company profitability by reducing economic risks and production costs.
- Improve environmental impact by adapting production and consumption methods, operations and the products and services we offer.
- Save time by entrusting the entire CSR process to a qualified professional.
