First of all, I would like to thank Expok and its director, Mr. Edgar Lopez Pimentel, for the opportunity they give me to express my concerns and just say that the opinions that I will express from now on are mine, mine alone and are supported in the 18 years that I have personally and In my company we try to manage Social Responsibility in the best way we know how.
To give background, I will say that our company is a SME, with only 5 employees in the Civil Works sector in Spain and that in 2004 we were a constituent company of the Spanish Global Compact Network.
We are part of the Executive Ecuador Mobile Number List Committee of Red Española G. Compact in the period 2006-2016, holding the position of General Secretary. Since 2008-2016. Today, being a signatory company of the Global Compact, with exclusive dedication to my business tasks and with the honor of sharing the Presidency of the Scientific Committee of the RSE Congress, with the teacher and good friend Mr. Juan José Almagro and in the Organizing Committee of the Congress, with the excellent and wonderful work team, led by Nita Macia.
With this background and at the door of the 7th CSR Congress with the title “Measure to Transform SR” I wanted to leave this necessary topic of reflection and debate for the 7th CSR Congress and address other of my concerns that address me day in and day out:
The growth of the Global Compact initiative in the World.
The use that is being given to the 10 G. Compact Principles at a Global level
And the role of Public Institutions and Governments with SR and the SDGs
To follow the order and first of all about the growth of Global Compact in the World, some data that may be curious and of interest... in my estimate, there are around a Thousand, Million companies in the world. Do not look for this information, I have not been able to find it on the entire internet and it comes from a simple rule of three, between listed and unlisted in Spain, transferring this result to the rest of the world.
In the world, there are approximately 12,000 companies and organizations that are signatories and committed to the 10 Global Compact Principles. That is, 0.00%.
In Spain, my Country and for which I have more tangible data, we have a total of 3,400,000 companies, of which approximately are committed and signatories of G. Compact. 2,000 of them, which represents a percentage of 0.06%.
In view of these percentages and after 20 years of the launch of the G. Compact Initiative, by the General Secretary of the United Nations Kofi Annan, the great work of dissemination and awareness carried out by his successor Ban Ki-Moon, the inclusion of the SDGs in the Agenda and the incessant work being carried out by the current Secretary General of the UN. António Guterres, I ask myself and leave two questions in the air:
Are we advancing at the necessary speed in terms of Principles and Values? Are the procedures used to make Social Responsibility universal adequate?
Secondly, and another of my concerns determined by the use that is being given to the 10 Principles of G. Compact, SDG and Agenda 2030.
I have always understood that the G. Compact initiative and compliance with the 10 Principles as well as the SDGs and its 169 Goals of the 2030 Agenda, have associated mandates of “ACTION ”. Personal action of each of us, collective action in organizations and ultimately the adoption of decisions and execution of these always supported within the 10 Principles and the Objectives and Goals of the Agenda.
Quite contrary to what was stated in the previous paragraph, I observe a lot of music and stories about Social Responsibility, a story that in turn is surrounded by a tinge of do-goodism, whose very widespread use, far from adopting action and management of Human Rights and establishment of Transparency, tries to direct the perception of interest groups towards the interests of the organizations in terms of institutional image, even worse in the case of politicians, the use of the Social R concept to address power ambitions.
I wonder and also leave this question in the air:
Should we focus efforts on educating consumers and society to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff in Social Responsibility?
To finish, a short personal reflection on the role of Public Institutions and Governments with their Social Responsibility, the SDGs and the goals of the 2030 Agenda.