Civil society organizations and CSR

Considering the enormous amount of essays, articles, books and special sections in newspapers dedicated to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), one can easily get the idea that the concept is as old as the nature of business itself. Regretfully, this impression is erroneous. Hardly 15 years have passed since CSR first became a serious issue for some pioneer companies. Today it is hard to find a European multinational corporation that does not have at least a code of ethics or a statement about CSR policies and activities on its website. In this article I will try to elucidate how civil society organizations in Europe and Latin America have responded and continue to respond to the CSR phenomenon.