Related to our recent decision to cover the 6th Annual Responsible Extractives Summit 2015 [LINK], we thought we’d bring to your attention an interesting survey by the organisers of the conference, Ethical Corporation.

It’s a survey they conducted with 249 Senior CSR Professionals in the extractives industry, free copies of which are available for download here.
 
The survey looks at:

•    The biggest changes, challenges and opportunities the industry currently faces
•    Who should be responsible for social responsibility and how is the role of CSR changing in the industry?
•    Where the industry’s latest innovations have been made.

Worth a quick look. For the very short of time or lax of attention, the three key points are as follows:

1. Risk mitigation is not enough: 95% of experts believe that social performance should move beyond risk mitigation and focus on generating active support from communities (preaching to the choir here).

2. Social responsibility is everyone’s responsibility: Organisations that can embed stakeholder engagement and social performance into the business culture will benefit from heightened business benefits.

3. More needs to be done with less: Commodity price drops have impacted Oil, Gas and Mining-innovation is needed to create lean management practices and maximize social impacts with reduced budgets.

Not earth shattering perhaps, but more weight behind a growing awareness and maturity in an industry that might perhaps be beginning to understand that the need to address CSR in a serious and substantive fashion isn’t going to go away.

ENDS

IMAGE: from survey report cover