EASY ECO Press Release

05. November, 2009   

How to measure the impact of CSR?

Easy Eco Budapest 2009 Conference
(16-18, October, 2009)

EASY-ECO unites twelve European top-class research institutions including the Center for Business and Society at the CEU Business School in Budapest, with the common aim of providing joint training sessions for all stakeholders including researchers, public policy makers and corporate professionals.
CEU Business School has been taking the global lead in integrating a broader understanding of socio-political factors into classic MBA education, as its Transnational MBA program has been designed to help business leaders better understand the broader social, political, environmental, cultural and ethical drivers and barriers to business growth in volatile and rapidly changing markets. The module ‘Ethical Leaders and Responsible Business’ has become an organic part of the curriculum, aimed at discussing the importance of ethical behavior and the economic and social responsibility of modern corporations to the greater society.

The Easy Eco 2009 Budapest Conference was an important milestone in the Easy-Eco 2008-2010 project, organized and hosted by the Center for Business and Society of the CEU Business School.
The event brought together some of the world's best experts in the field of evaluating sustainable development with young researchers and practitioners from over 25 countries of four continents. The keynote speakers presented the latest results and newest achievements in sustainability evaluation and its links to business practices. All participants agreed that the conference demonstrated innovative thinking and out-of-the-box approaches in a relatively new field by broadening the horizon of business leaders as well as other stakeholders showing different frames of mind in approaching the same problems and coming up with different yet complementing solutions.
Critical issues were raised such as how to respond to the collapse of ecosystems and the declining ability to provide food security and whether we are prepared to mitigate the negative impacts of exponential growth. The discussions challenged mainstream thinking and uncritical practices of the EU that do not promote sustainable evelopment and questioned whether corporate social responsibility help achieve public policy goals to promote sustainability. The dialogues helped cross-semination of ideas and
methods by generating new insights. Some of the results of these new approaches in most diverse fields like carbon labeling, cross-national roma integration, or private-public partnership in building energy efficient structures were presented by young practitioners.