Apart from its other activities for the promotion of corporate social responsibility, SMart Kolektiv has, in cooperation with the Serbian government and the Deputy Prime Minister's team for the implementation of the Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRSP) and Serbia Investment and Export Promotion Agency (SIEPA), started to create the Best Practices CSR Knowledge Base of Serbian Companies, with the accent on case studies related to CSR activities. The case studies in this base will be used for further encouragement and enhancement of CSR in Serbia. The main aim of this knowledge base is to truthfully and objectively identify the examples of best practice, which maximizes competitiveness, but also social benefit. The intention is to motivate companies to more intensively evaluate the influence they have on their work and on the social and ecological environment, and to report about their relevant activities. Given that the concept of corporate social responsibility covers a wide range of topics, the end-users could be all those who might benefit from the active CSR attitude: the local community in terms of improved cooperation with companies and enhanced living conditions, civil society organizations in terms of finding partners for joint action, the media as sources of information, or the business sector, whose representatives might thereby gain insight into the practice of other companies. Moreover, the Best Practices CSR Knowledge Base allows companies to define the necessary conditions - what the state should do, i.e. how it can stimulate the development of this concept in Serbia. The intended deadline for this project is the end of 2007, when the base should become publicly available.
The Best Practices Knowledge Base will focus on crucial CSR topics such as:
- The Local and National Community - the cooperation with the local or national civil society organizations or the local authorities, programs of investment into the local community, philanthropy;
- Corporate management - reporting, business transparency, information availability and internal codes of conduct;
- Workplace - employment polices, polices for protection at work, educational programs and employee training;
- Environment - programs of environment protection, programs of energy saving and increased energy efficiency;
- Market - relationship with consumers/suppliers/partners, instigating local business initiative.
