The Israeli Parliament announces new CSR LobbyA number of leading Israeli legislators announced today the establishment of a new CSR Lobby. The new lobby will enhance the public discourse on CSR issues and promote legislation on social and environmental responsibilities of the Israeli business sector. The first law proposal, which was drafted by lobby members and supported with public consultation (the CSR Law – Mandatory Reporting), aims at mandating corporate social and environmental transparency to all large companies in Israel. Jerusalem, July 9th. In a ceremonial event today in the Israeli Parliament (the Knesset), a group of leading Israeli legislators announced the establishment of a new lobby, the CSR Lobby. The lobby is a pressure group that is consisted of both legislators and civil society representatives – NGOs, scholars, media and business. The lobby is being professionally assisted by the CSRI (Corporate Social Responsibility Institute) that operates under the College of Law and Business. The lobby first legislation initiative is “the CSR Law- Mandatory Reporting” which aims at introducing environmental and social reporting to all large Israeli corporations, including private, governmental and municipal. This new ground breaking law has been drafted in the spirit of the new EU Sustainability Reporting Directive, though articulated differently. It does not refer to other CSR or accepted reporting guidelines but, rather, includes a detailed index of performance indicators that companies are to report accordingly. The index includes global issues such as human rights, diversity in the work place or carbon footprint, along with more country specific indicators such as reducing car accidents, animal rights, etc. The proposal will be available in English in the coming days. Lobby Chair, MK[1] Eitan Cabel said today that the idea behind the new CSR law proposal is to harness the corporations in the effort to serve the public good by providing more information rather than by sanctioning them to comply with new and ever increasing social and environmental laws and regulations. MK Cabel added that: “Once their performances will be transparent and comparable, the public will be the one to judge and compare. The law will facilitate public scrutiny by regulating and organizing the transparency indicators and requests.” Liad Ortar, head of Sustainability Reporting at the CSRI and consultant to the lobby said that: “Transparency is the beating heart of CSR. This heart beat has always been falling in pace, not being able to supply enough oxygen to answer public demands. The reason is that the ruling principle of CSR was, and still is, ‘beyond compliance’. The new EU legislation, along with many other CSR mandatory initiatives, is blowing new winds and shaking this old paradigm. The public has the right to know what are the environmental and social ramifications of the goods and services which he consumes and to choose its preferable supplier accordingly.” For Further details: Liad Ortar, CSRI , liad.ortar@gmail.com +972-584873737 |