Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the food sector

Agri-food companies are particularly concerned by Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives, given their strong impact on the natural, social and economic environments – the three pillars of social responsibility – in other words, their role as major players in sustainable development.

This article begins by contextualizing CSR in the recent history of the French and European agri-food environment, both institutionally and professionally. Since 2008, public, national and European institutions have invested heavily in the subject. However, the professional world has also innovated, and the approaches emerging today are often the heirs of older initiatives in organic farming, the environment, sustainable agriculture, fair trade and local development. CSR is therefore – at least partially – in the strategic continuity of players committed to their environment and concerned to identify the negative or positive impacts of their actions on it.

In the second part, we look at the major concrete initiatives taken in the agri-food sector by business groups, companies and organizations, particularly since the publication in November 2010 of the standard ISO 26000 . The creation of this standard, and its rapid adaptation to the agri-food sector, represents a major turning point for CSR, as it enables the three pillars of the approach (environmental, economic and social) to be integrated into an official, internationally recognized approach. However, the standard-based approach does not exhaust the complexity and diversity of initiatives, as CSR can take many forms, reflecting different strategic orientations and contrasting ambitions with regard to the three pillars, as well as different objective situations depending on the sectors concerned: opposition between SMEs and major groups, the weight of the cooperative sector, structuring sector initiatives, private initiatives to promote the CSR approach, etc.

The conclusion puts CSR strategies in the agri-food sector into perspective from a contextual, historical and strategic viewpoint:

• contextual, as it is strongly influenced by the technical specificities of the sector, as well as by the French and European institutional and professional environments;

  historical, as the concept and its practices have evolved considerably under the impetus of companies, collective approaches and the growing influence of stakeholders;

  strategic, as CSR is first and foremost a means of legitimizing, differentiating and even conquering markets, for individual companies, business groups and professional sectors alike.

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