For the last decade, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has assumed  increasing practical and political relevance in the EU. Many look at CSR to deliver benefits for economies, societies and the environment. In 2007, the European Parliament stated that ‘the EU debate on CSR has approached the point where emphasis should be shifted from process to outcome’. CSR therefore can be seen as a business opportunity to contribute to the EU’s policies for growth, competitiveness, better jobs - known as the Lisbon strategy - and sustainable development as formulated in the Gothenburg strategy.

However, there is little empirical evidence what the concrete impact of CSR is on company performance and the wider economy, or the social and environmental fabric of Europe, its nations and regions. No widely applied tools and methods exist to date that provide valid and representative assessments of the impacts of CSR.

IMPACT intends to create new tools and develop existing ones further to measure the impacts of CSR at different levels across European companies, sectors, regions and EU27.

It aims to test and validate these tools through its research design. At the same time, the research methods will provide evidence to explain, characterise and compare the link between what drives CSR in companies, the translation into actions, and the outcomes in terms of CSR performance and impacts for the company, economy, society and environment.

The research will work with SMEs as well as large companies. A particular research focus will be to analyse how regional, national and European institutions and policies influence the CSR impacts of companies and industries.  

The project will collate and combine existing non-public data sets that help to measure and monitor the impacts of CSR. It will set out to collect new panel data to monitor CSR impacts across Europe.

The empirical evidence on the impacts of CSR will be used to see if and how European companies contribute - through CSR - to the main areas and objectives set in the Lisbon and Gothenburg strategies - competitiveness, innovation, growth, quality of jobs and sustainability.

Results from the IMPACT project will be documented and published in various ways. Three IMPACT products will compile the main results from the project by March 2013:

• A Practitioners’ Handbook on assessing and developing CSR impacts,
• A Policy Briefing Report on polices and actions to promote the impact oof CSR in EU-27,
• Scientific articles and journal editions on the structure and explanation of CSR impacts.

IMPACT will involve relevant stakeholders and experts in various ways throughout the entire project. An advisory board will be established that consists of different actors that come from a science-based and multi-stakeholder background. Furthermore, stakeholder consultations and expert workshops will be conducted. Business, policy makers and multi-stakeholder experts will be involved in-depth into the empirical phases.

The consortium itself joins forces of 16 leading institutions in CSR research, education and networking. Members of the consortium come from 12 countries across Europe and their expertise and background will help to research the relations between business, society and the state specific to each country which influence CSR impacts. The work of all IMPACT members will create the largest integrated research effort on CSR impact assessment in Europe to date.