The concept of CSR has been reformulated several times by several institutional bodies at the international level:
CSR goes beyond compliance with legal requirements, identifying practices and behaviors a company shall adopt on a voluntary basis.
It is possible to identify social responsibility in terms of sustainability, as it is necessary to evaluate the activities of a company in terms of its contribution to:
- economic prosperity, as the capacity to generate wealth is a necessary condition to ensure the survival of the firm;
- environmental protection, in terms of care for the ecological balance in its various dimensions;
- promotion of the socio-institutional context, i.e. towards the stakeholders inside and outside the company.
Virtuous and socially responsible behaviors in the firm can be declined following a structure of four macro-areas falling within the product and consumers, the local community, the environment and the human resources.