Bulgarian Business and Corporate Social Responsibility in the EU Environment

Today at Grand Hotel Bulgaria official launch and discussion of the baseline survey "Corporate Social Responsibility within the Bulgarian Context" conducted by Alpha Research and commissioned by the UN Global Compact and Bulgarian Charities Aid Foundation, was held. Boryana Dimitrova, Managing Director of Alpha Research presented the results of the survey.  

Neil Buhne, UNDP Resident Representative and UN Resident Coordinator discussed the of UN and its agencies as well as the impact of Global Compact Network in CSR promotion. Elitsa Barakova, Executive Director of the Bulgarian Charities Aid Foundation presented the role of the government and NGO sector. Haralan Alexandrov, Social Anthropologist, New Bulgarian University who consulted the preparation of the survey moderated the discussions.

More than a 120 members of the Bulgarian Global Compact Network, companies that participated in the survey, business associations, NGOs, international organizations, government representatives and media discussed their views on the topic of Corporate Social Responsibility.

The survey regarding the understanding and practices of corporate social responsibilities in Bulgaria was planned in the first half of 2006 within the framework of the Bulgarian Network of the Global Compact. It aims at understanding what the attitudes towards corporate social responsibility among large and medium companies, and among Global Compact member companies are. Analyses of the basic models and practices, the restraining and encouraging factors for corporate responsibility are important for the future good project planning by Global Compact Network in Bulgaria.

37 business representatives in charge of social responsibility programmes participated in the qualitative survey. The standardized interview conducted with 121 companies gave the quantitative data. The Analysis presents a picture of a growing interest towards responsible business behavior among large and medium companies in Bulgaria. Corporate social responsibility is defined as a value and companies are interested in getting such a reputation as a result of their activities. However, further efforts for better planning, implementation and evaluation of socially engaged programmes are needed. Business networks, non-profit organizations, media and the companies themselves should work to increase the available capacity for the implementation of long-term and effective socially engaged activities.