Corporate Social Responsibility: CSR is concerned with treating the key stakeholders of a firm or institution ethically or in a responsible manner. ‘Ethically or responsible' means treating stakeholders in a manner deemed acceptable in civilised societies.  Social includes economic and environmental responsibility.  Stakeholders exist both within a firm and outside. The wider aim of social responsibility is to create higher and higher standards of living, while preserving the profitability of the corporation, for peoples both within and outside the corporation Original Source: Michael Hopkins: A Planetary Bargain: Corporate Social Responsibility Comes of Age (Macmillan, UK, 1998) Revised July 2009

AccountAbility 1000 (AA1000): is a process standard to assist an organisation in the definition of goals and targets, the measurement of progress made against these targets, the auditing and reporting of performance, and feedback mechanisms.  MHCi staff participated in the setting up of the background to AA1000 and is still actively involved.

Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI)  Business-driven initiative to improve working conditions in a sustainable manner through a collaborative effort of companies.  Offers companies a comprehensive monitoring and qualification system covering all products sourced from any country.

Corporate Citizenship (CC): is about business taking greater account of its social and environmental - as well as its financial - footprints. Source: Simon Zadek The Civil Corporation, (p7, Earthscan, London, 2001)

Corporate Governance (CG): Corporate Governance is concerned with holding the balance between economic and social goals and between individual and communal goals. The corporate governance framework is there to encourage the efficient use of resources and equally to require accountability for the stewardship of those resources. The aim is to align as nearly as possible the interests of individuals, corporations and society" Source: Sir Adrian Cadbury in ‘Global Corporate Governance Forum', World Bank, 2000)

Corporate Social Investment (CSI):  is the investment in development projects in emerging markets by companies that may, or may not be, directly relevant to the company's bottom line

Corporate Sustainability: aligns an organisation's products and services with stakeholder expectations, thereby adding economic, environmental and social value (Price WaterhouseCoopers). 

Ethics: the science of morals in human conduct. Source: Oxford Dictionary 

Ethical Accounting: is the process through which the company takes up a dialogue with major stakeholders to report on past activities with a view to shaping future ones. Source: John Rosthorn: Business Ethics Auditing - More than a Stakeholder's Toy (Journal of Business Ethics 00: 1-11, 2000, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Netherlands)

Ethical Auditing: is regular, complete and documented measurements of compliance with the company's published policies & procedures.  Source: John Rosthorn, ibid.

Ethical Book-Keeping: is systematic, reliable maintaining of accessible records for corporate activities which reflect on its conduct and behaviour. Source: JR, ibid.

Fair Labour Association (FLA): An organization that uses ILO core labour standards to evaluate fair labour practices in company supply chains

Global Reporting Initiative (GRI): A set of principles, ideas, and indicators useful in CSR reporting.

International Standards Organisation (ISO):  A UN body that produces agreed standards such as ISO26000 on CSR

International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labelling Alliance (ISEAL): The ISEAL Alliance is a, or the, global hub for social and environmental standards systems.  ISEAL's Codes of Good Practice are international reference documents for credible social and environmental standards. Compliance is a membership condition.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): A reduced set of measures or indicators that purport to show the most important aspects of the body being measures.

Public Private Partnerships (PPP):  Partnerships between private companies and public bodies in a joint venture to perform projects and programmers for the public good.

Reputation Assurance: A number of common global principles for the business environment assembled to provide quantitative and trend information. (JR, ibid.)

Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX): A US law that imposes standards on conflict of interest, and greater transparency of reporting of companies

Social Accountability 8000 (SA8000): An international standard for human rights in the industrial setting set up by CEPAA in the USA.  MHCi provided comments and suggestions in the early days of SA8000.

Social Reporting: Non-financial data covering staff issues, community economic developments, stakeholder involvement and can include voluntarism and environmental performance. 

Socially Responsible Investment (SRI): Investment in socially responsible activities normally by an investment fund.

Sustainable Development: Environmental impact measurement, improvements, monitoring and reporting. (JR, ibid).

Comments and suggestions: We would be really pleased if you had any better ideas (not difficult!) suggestions, references, other definitions that we could use. Please just send us an This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it