2025: A Year to Foster True Citizenship as a Driver for Competitiveness
In his New Year message, CSR Europe's Executive Director, Stefan Crets, highlights how impact, collaboration, and competitiveness are the key pillars of CSR Europe’s 2025 program, and our aspirations for the year are built upon them.
As a father, much like many others, I increasingly look to the future with a growing sense of anxiety.
2024 was not an easy year, marked by the outcomes of different elections, the ongoing war in Ukraine, and rising geopolitical tensions. The persistent challenges and suffering in many parts of the world, including Europe, are ever more apparent.
I was born in 1964 and, as a child, I was deeply affected by the Cold War and the issues faced in a world far away: the nuclear arms race, the physical barriers that made borders visible and hard, famines in Africa, wars in distant countries, and dictatorships in various regions. But I also witnessed my family’s evolution over just three generations: from dependent tenant farmers to primary- and secondary-educated state employees, and later to university-educated people working in the care sector, the arts, or business.
Throughout my youth, I held an image of progress and increasing welfare. From not having a car to owning increasingly larger ones; from short holidays at the Belgian coast with the mutual health association to flights to India or city breaks in Madrid or Rome. I grew up with friends engaged in diverse social and environmental projects, all of us sharing a vision of what a better world could look like.
My father was a hardworking man, one who believed in “doing the right thing, in the right way”. Having been born just before World War II, he was deeply infused with a sense of citizenship and understood that democratic societies, the welfare state, the social importance of companies, and the opportunity to work were the foundations that drove the improvement of our family’s life.
I grew up in security, believing in the power of progress: that we can make the world a better place for all. While we still needed to tackle and overcome externalities on the path to achieving our status, we believed it was possible. We may not have fully realized this vision, but at least for us in Western Europe, the Cold War provided for decades a stable and safe framework on which we could build this agenda.
I can no longer offer my son that same sense of security. While there is still a degree of material well-being, all I can offer him is my father’s legacy of citizenship: the belief that if we can agree on a shared direction for the common good and unite our efforts and collaborate to achieve it, then we can make progress, mitigate negative externalities, and work towards making the world a better place.
This is exactly what CSR Europe will focus on in 2025 - even more so than before, because it is needed. We are all facing anxieties around us, and we are determined to drive prosperity for all. However, we have also learned that sustainability, or corporate citizenship, is not easily achieved, and should not be reduced to a beauty contest.
There are checks and balances, conflicting pathways to follow, priorities to set, and causalities that cannot always be managed. Our understanding of the limited impact individual companies can have has deepened. The 2030 SDG targets seem increasingly out of reach, the Paris Agreement goals and the targets companies derived from them appear unachievable, and that is becoming increasingly evident. However, this does not mean we should abandon these targets, but rather approach them with more modest expectations.
I strongly believe that companies play a crucial role in this process. Their sustainability efforts - through employment, innovation, supplier engagement, products, and services – are key drivers for advancing towards a more sustainable and inclusive society. The members of CSR Europe are fully aware of this.
The European Union, its member states, and stakeholders all recognize the vital role companies play in working towards a sustainable and inclusive society. While the “what” is shared, the “how” remains far from straightforward.
With the European Green Deal, an avalanche of regulations has been released, but it risks creating a counter-movement. Europe’s economic standing in the new geopolitical landscape is weakening, our industry faces challenging times, and unfortunately, sustainability regulations are often perceived and experienced as a burdensome cost, rather than, as yet, an opportunity to drive an economic agenda towards more inclusive prosperity and a Just Transition.
During its past board term, CSR Europe’s Board of Directors reflected on this new reality and decided to focus more on how to better leverage regulations and stakeholder engagement. How can the quality of regulation and the potential of policy frameworks be used to drive an innovation and competitiveness agenda? This has become a core theme in CSR Europe’s engagement with the European Commission.
In spring 2024, we launched the CSR Europe Manifesto, and we also created the European CSO Network, with the primary mission of engaging with the European Commission to develop and implement impactful regulations and policy frameworks. Fortunately, the new Commission term, which began in September 2024, has shown a willingness to engage with the practitioners of the European CSO Network. They are open to discussing how regulations and policies can be improved, including to drive the competitiveness agenda. This will be a central focus of our EU policy work in 2025.
Impact is the key word: at CSR Europe, we emphasise that progress towards sustainable development and a Just Transition cannot be achieved solely through the actions of individual companies. This remains a crucial area, and for this reason we have developed two new Atelier series and tailored services, to further support our members in their efforts to drive forward continuous improvements.
However, the responsibility cannot fall solely on individual companies. To overcome the challenges inherent in sustainable development, companies need to collaborate - with their peers, suppliers, and other stakeholders. This will be key in our 2025 programme, particularly through the further development of platforms such as Drive Sustainability, Responsible Trucking, Biodiversity, and Responsible Tax Conduct.
As mentioned earlier, the centrepiece of the work in 2025 will evolve around the European policy frameworks: how can regulation and policy be improved? How can companies implement these regulations efficiently? And, above all, how can companies leverage these regulations and expectations to create value? That is why, this year, we are offering a new opportunity to our network of National Partner Organisations: in the “Impactful EU Regulations” series, NPOs will be invited to share their experience in implementing European regulations in each country, ensuring that their on-the-ground expertise is more strongly represented in Brussels.
The new realities surrounding sustainability and the need to demonstrate its business value - beyond mere compliance - also call for a redefined role for Chief Sustainability Officers within companies, as outlined in the first Discussion Paper of our European CSO network, published in December 2024. The peer-to-peer exchanges between CSOs will be a crucial part of our agenda.
Impact, collaboration, and competitiveness are the key pillars of our 2025 program, and CSR Europe’s aspirations for the year are built upon them. Our next edition of the European Sustainable Industry Summit, taking place in Brussels on 24-25 June 2025, will also focus on these themes.
If companies, policymakers, and stakeholders can align on these challenges, take practical steps, and work in partnerships – rather than just setting expectations and guidelines - we can make significant progress towards true, practical citizenship.
Stefan Crets
CSR Europe Executive Director
