Measuring Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
Many organisations have difficulties measuring CSR initiatives. Some benefits such as customer loyalty and improved reputation are hard to quantify, therefore difficult to measure the Return on Investment (ROI).
However, measurement is really important to establish your ROI it enables you to:
Promote the importance of your activities to your customers, staff and stakeholders
Improve your decision making as you progress your CSR initiatives
Align your CSR with business goals and objectives
Measure the impact of the CSR on your bottom line E.g link customer or employee satisfaction to increased revenue
Measuring the impact of CSR
Your ROI can be measured by:
- Benchmarking your business against others in your sector
- Seek recognition of your CSR practice by taking part in business awards
- Setting key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure your environmental performance E.g reduced landfill, reduced paper, plastic, energy
- Lower staff turnover
- Customer and Employee satisfaction surveys