1.1.3.1 The European Multistakeholder Forum on CSR (October 2002)

The European Multistakeholder Forum was launched in October 2002 as a follow- up of the European Commission first Communication on CSR (July 2002). According to this communication, the European Multistakeholder Forum is a fundamental part of the European Commission strategy to promote CSR and sustainable development. Composed of EU-level representative organizations of employers, employees, trade unions, business organizations, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), academia, consumers and civil society, it was developed to foster CSR, to promote transparency, innovation and convergence on CSR practices and tools. The European Multistakeholder Forum was coordinated by CSR Europe, European Trade Union Confederation, Business Europe and the European Platform of NGOs. With the European Commission chairing, the European Multistakeholder Forum supported dialogue and discussions on subjects such as, sustainable development, sustainability reporting, environmental protection, social cohesion and competitiveness between the different stakeholders groups.

Five high level meetings took place between 2002 and 2004 to tackle progress of the European Multistakeholder Forum and CSR. In 2004, the European Multistakeholder Forum published a Forum report assessing the work done during the first two years of work and making recommendations for the future. The European Commission hosts plenary meetings of the European Multistakeholder Forum every two years, so two years later, in December 2006, a Forum Review meeting took place to evaluate the implementation of the recommendations made in the Forum report of 2004 and also to look for new ways of cooperation. The next plenary meeting took place only in February 2009.

The debate at the EU level had its focal point only on the second progress’ review meeting of the European Multistakeholder Forum on the 10th February 2009.1 The European Commission organized and hosted, between September 2009 and March 2010, a series of six workshops on the disclosure of environmental, social and governance (ESG) information by enterprises. These workshops were meant to provide a constructive follow-up to the European Multistakeholder Forum request for entrepreneurial transparency and for new ways of doing business, as the way out of the current recession. Each of these workshops looked at ESG disclosure from the different points of view of a chosen set of stakeholders: enterprise, investors, civil society consumers and media, trade unions and public authorities.

The workshops counted with the participation of a core group of persons and organizations – from the various groups of stakeholders (Industry, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), Trade Unions, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), Financial Analysts, Accountants, Investors, etc.) These series were closed with a final workshop about the future of the European policy looking at different possible case scenarios.2 The conclusions of these workshops were presented and discussed at a conference organized by the Spanish Presidency of the EU on the 25th and 26th March 2010 and also in a plenary meeting of the European Multistakeholder Forum in the first half of 2011.34

Given the unique opportunity to gather the views of the most influential stakeholders in the market and promoting the discussion of CSR top issues, it was until 2011, the central event of the CSR discussion.