The Norwegian government released a White Paper on Corporate social responsibility in 2008 (“Corporate social responsibility in a global economy”). Even though CSR is mainly a voluntarily initiative, the Norwegian government still expects both government-owned and companies in the private sector to adhere to the guidelines as outlined in the White Paper. And as the Minister emphasized in his speech, CSR is not only about morale, it is also a business opportunity.
The aim of the seminar was to exchange ideas and experiences on integrating public interest into their companies’ daily decision-making process. Key speakers at the seminar were both from Norwegian and Chinese companies and research institutes, as well as ILOs Programme Director for China and Mongolia, Ms Constance Thomas.
The CSR-seminar is but one example of a broad and active Sino-Norwegian cooperation in this area. China Enterprise Confederation (CEC) and the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (NHO) have already enjoyed many years of cooperation on CSR, and have just signed a new 5-year cooperation plan. Norwegian certification company, DNV has also worked closely with several large Chinese companies on certifying their CSR reports, for example for COSCO, which was the first Chinese State-Owned Enterprise to issue such a report.