New Voluntary Quality Standard for Corporate Sustainability and Responsibility Research

The CSRR-QS2.1 was created with the objective of promoting confidence in corporate sustainability and responsibility research. The Standard aims to improve quality management systems, stimulate transparency, facilitate assurance processes and form a basis for subsequent verification procedures.

The establishment of the standard was initiated with the support of the European Commission, Employment and Social Affairs DG as the outcome of the project “Developing a Voluntary Quality Standard for SRI Research” (2002-2003). It was drawn up to help further the European Commission’s aim to build partnerships for the promotion of CSR. The project began in 2002 and version 1.0 was introduced in 2003. Over the following years, the VQS has undergone an iterative process resulting in this latest launch, version 2.1.

Organizations who are signatories of CSRR-QS 2.1 subscribe to a series of quality principles, the “Eleven commitments”; subscribe to “Nine integrity commitments”; ensure objectivity, independence, impartiality; operate an effective quality management system and fulfill some administrative requirements.

So far, seven corporate sustainability research providers have been certified, Ecodes, EIRIS, EthiFinance, GES, imug, Oekom, and Vigeo.