CSR IMPACT Practitioners Handbook

Together with 17 European project partners, ABIS has developed guidelines for small, medium-sized and large enterprises in the creation and implementation of sustainability strategies. The handbook’s main recommendation to focus, from the beginning, on the greatest possible benefit for society, both in terms of strategy development and in the implementation of sustainability measures. The practitioners’ handbook is based on the results of the IMPACT project – the largest integrated research effort on CSR impact assessment in Europe to date.

There are many aspects to whether a company’s sustainability measure benefits society or not: the choice of specific sustainability issue, the selection of a specific activity, the implementation and/or measurement of positive or negative impacts on society or the environment. The more systematic the company’s approach is, the greater the probability that the sustainability activities will be worthwhile.

With this in mind, the experts have developed the CIAM method – Corporate Impact Assessment & Management. Based on this method, sustainability measures go – in a best case scenario – through five phases, beginning with the selection of sustainability issues that are the most important for the company and for society. After it has been decided which sustainability measures should be implemented, the results should subsequently be measured and evaluated, ideally on the basis of key indicators. In each of the five phases, the impact of the measure is to the fore. CIAM follows the pattern of established tools of management systems and adds some new elements.