Translation of "comportement d'entreprise " (French → English) :

7. Endorses the Commission’s intention to bring forward a proposal on ‘non-financial disclosure’ by businesses which will enable the EU to encourage European businesses to apply the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the UN Global Compact; welcomes the fact that this proposal is based on a wide-ranging public consultation as well as on a series of workshops with relevant stakeholders; stresses that use of the term ‘non-financial’ should not disguise the real financial consequences for businesses in terms of social, environmental and human rights impacts; points out that the impact of business action and social involvement can also be measured in financial terms; calls for a proposal which places the EU at the heart o ...[+++]f the many current international initiatives on corporate sustainability reporting and which is fully in line with the objective of making integrated reporting, as currently developed by the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC), the global norm by the end of the decade; stresses, however, that any solution chosen must not create excessive administrative burdens, particularly for SMEs; believes that the philanthropic activities of businesses should not generate red tape and costs that could jeopardise their voluntary commitments; welcomes the goal of exposing human rights violations and criminal schemes, and urges states to punish such activity with utmost rigour;

The functioning of the internal market involves a process of concentrations of undertakings, cross-border mergers, take-overs, joint ventures and, consequently, a transnationalisation of undertakings and groups of undertakings.

The agreements governing the establishment and operation of European Works Councils must include the methods for modifying, terminating, or renegotiating them when necessary, particularly where the make-up or structure of the undertaking or group of undertakings is modified.

* Considerations of image and reputation play an increasingly important role in the business competitive environment, as consumers and NGO's ask for more information about the conditions in which products and services are generated and the sustainability impact thereof, and tend to reward, with their behaviour, socially and environmentally responsible firms.

In its position paper "Releasing Europe's employment potential: Companies' views on European Social Policy beyond 2000" UNICE (Union of Industrial and Employers' Confederations of Europe) has stressed that European companies see themselves as an integral part of society, as they act in a socially responsible way; consider profits to be the main goal of the company but not its only "raison d'être", and opt for long-term thinking on strategic decisions and investment.

These requirements have also been strengthened by Parliament’s amendments, of which the following stand out: the obligation to comply with environmental legislation by participating companies, establishing more demanding standards for the qualification and training of the environmental verifiers who accredit the companies, public reports on the environmental performance of companies, with absolute credibility for third parties, greater involvement of the interested parties in the process of monitoring the environmental performance of companies and, in particular, of employees and users, extension of environmental responsibility, which go ...[+++]es beyond the company’s facilities, to include indicators of the performance of products and services, in line with the approach of the new environmental directives, and also an increase in the role of the coordinating bodies with the aim of facilitating the homogenous application of the system in the various Member States.