Public affairs - how we can help

Business in the Community brings over 25 years of extensive and in-depth knowledge of corporate responsibility issues to provide timely and intelligent information to policymakers. This is informed by what we learn from our membership of 850+ companies.

To this end, we seek to inform the policy debate with our experience and understanding, and we can provide briefings to help you understand the issues. We are able to work with Parliamentarians, Government Officials, Leading Councillors and their researchers by providing, for example:

• Written and oral evidence to Select Committee inquiries
• Face to face and written briefings to MPs, Peers and Leading Councillors on the issues of the day
• Evidence-based research reports on key issues
• The annual Corporate Responsibility Index to assess the performance of many leading companies
• Examples of company best practice through our independently assessed 'Awards for Excellence'. 
  

In Westminster we helped found the All Party Parliamentary Group on Corporate Social Responsibility (APPG on CSR). On the APPG on CR website you will find the CR Toolkit we have developed which includes the MP's Guide to Responsible Business (2007), case studies and information on issue briefings.

Six key overarching principles run through Business in the Community's work and underpin our public voice:

• support for sustainable development:  “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”;
• recognition of the mutuality between business and society;
• conviction that progress in achieving higher standards of corporate responsibility will best achieved through a voluntary approach, rather than regulation, where possible;
• different indicators of success in corporate responsibility have different levels of materiality in each company as expectations can reasonably vary by business size, sector and location;
• business, by and large, does good by virtue of the goods and services provided and how it does it: creating wealth, enabling economic stability, providing opportunities for employees, suppliers and customers, as well as paying tax;
• belief that excellent understanding of communities from which a business draws its customers and employees makes it more effective and profitable.
   

If you wish to support us with our campaigns, or are interested in meeting BITC staff to discuss a particular issue, please contact Charlotte Turner.