oikos International is a student organization gathering with the goal of achieving sustainable economics and managements. This goal represents two of the three components of sustainable development. The title of the conference deals with the corporate social responsibility which represents a major element of the third component.
Sustainable development is considered by the United Nations as having three components: Economic Growth, Social Development and Environmental Protection essentially meaning rational management of natural resources not just pollution abatement.
The concept of sustainable development did not come up over night. It is based on tenets expressed more than three decades ago. At the beginning of the 1970s, the Club of Rome released its famous report “Limits to Growth”, warning that the planet’s ability to sustain us, our industries, and our agriculture was being jeopardized, and that what, for a relatively small human population, had seemed infinite was actually alarmingly finite.
The 1972 UN conference on the Human Environment at Stockholm defined environment as the dynamic stock of physical and social resources available at any given time for the satisfaction of human needs, and development as a process by which these resources are used for  increasing and maintaining human well-being. It became evident that environmental and development objectives are complementary. With this understanding a search began for a new, more rounded concept of development related to the limits of the natural-resource base and in which environmental considerations play a central role while still allowing opportunities for human activities. Current patterns of production and consumption, based on waste, extravagance, and planned obsolescence, would have to be replaced by those based on the conservation and reuse of resources; sustainable development . We went over 10 years through various concepts: outer limits; eco-development; development without destruction; alternative patterns of development and life styles, until the concept of sustainable development was coined by UNEP Governing Council at the 10th anniversary of Stockholm in 1982. It was developed by the UN Brundtland Commission on environment and development between 1984 and 1987 and finally adopted by the World Nations at Rio de Janeiro in 1992, at the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Stockholm Conference.
Sustainable development can not be achieved by any one group of the society alone. It needs the full cooperation of governments, legislative bodies and civil society including academic, private sector and NGOs. You are on NGO and your target is to achieve sustainable economic and management. Within the current prevailing market economy the corporate social responsibility of the private sector is a major player. This is certainly intertwined with corporate environmental responsibility. 
Both have been adopted by business and industry not because of preaching or good will but because they realised that there is no burden on the finances of the business but rather an investment with high return. This has been recorded in concrete examples.
Corporate social responsibility including building clinics and hospitals for the poor where they function, establishing schools or a housing scheme for the needy leaves a better image for the business leading to more use of their products and hence rewarding profits.
Corporate Environmental Responsibility is the same: using better, less polluting technologies with very high returns on the investment. One multinational cooperation designed a plan to reduce its emissions by 50% and 75%. The plan was cost at one billion US dollars with an estimated profit of US$ 3-5 billion. Both estimates turned out to be correct. There are several other concrete examples of the results of the application of corporate social and environmental responsibility.
But we still have a very long way to go. This gathering of young people is the most adversely offered by the unsustainable way of life by the rich in the North and the South.
The Environmental Sustainability Indexes (ESIs) were published in 2002 and 2005, covering 142 and 146 countries respectively. They were based on official publications by UNESCO, FAO, WHO, World Bank, Federal Environment, Agency of Germany, World Economic Forum and Yale and Colombia Universities (USA).
What did these indices show:
They show that the total productive area of the earth (land and productive water) is 1.8 global hectares per person. Human beings kept within this limit till 1980. Then it shot up. By 2005 each person on Earth was using 2.2 global hectares meaning that we are now using more than 22% above the total Earth’s productivity. This means that we are leaving your generation and the generations to come with a non- productive Earth to live on.
I believe it is your responsibility to stop this. It is the responsibility of your generation to fight for its right to receive the Earth from the current generation the way we received it from our parents. It is you who should force us to implement the slogan we keep repeating every day “We did not inherent Earth, we are borrowing it from future generations”.

Can we find ecological ethics without spiritual base?

The ecological question is a perplexing challenge for ethical considerations. Can our traditional approaches to ethical reflections be helpful? The answer is yes and no.

Yes, because we have long traditions how to reflect ethical questions: along this way there have been found principles of argumentations which are still valid.

But we also have to say no! Even if the ecological challenge meanwhile has influenced partly the general consciousness and some goals have been reached, we are far away from modern and adequate ethical concepts.

Which can be the starting point to building ethical concepts in regard to the ecological question? Economy? Nature? Survival? Justice? I am convinced that we cannot cope with the huge problems without starting from a spiritual base. Our „creditions“ – that means the way how we believe as well as the contents of our beliefs are highly influential on our activities.

Two things are particularly important in the context of corporate social responsibility: first, creating the organisational framework required for professional CSR management; and second, raising awareness of CSR among employees because their attitudes are essential for a company in living up to its social responsibility. Bank Austria is making good progress in both areas, but there is still some way to go.

We are fortunate to be a member of UniCredit Group, a banking group which –like Bank Austria – has always been aware of its responsibility to the environment and the communities in which it operates. In Austria, we have introduced CSR management and defined CSR activity fields, and we regularly share experiences with other banks in the Group.

We are also taking initiatives aimed at integrating employees in the CSR process. Examples of such initiatives are the bank-wide CSR Ideas Contest currently taking place, and involvement in various social projects. It is important that each employee is committed to CSR, and in this respect our experience is highly encouraging: many colleagues already think in terms of sustainability, they have good ideas and they actively participate in various initiatives in their private lives. Our task is to create the framework required to use these resources also within the company.

CSR can be expressed in many different actions and measures a company is taking. They can be divided into internal measures towards the employees and the external measures towards society and nature. At SERI, we implement measures in both fields. In my statement I will shortly present those and explain the impacts we experience so far. Examples for our measures are: internal: process accompanied by coaches to develop personal and company visions and to coor dinate those; part time work for everybody in order to have time for family, friends, hobbies, societal work etc; gender equality on all levels; employees and friends/family as shareholders; external: resource efficient and environmentally friendly behaviour; transparency and openness towards stakeholders and sponsors; each project is dedicated towards a transition to sustainable development; due to part time and no overhours more time for family, friends and the society.

Thinking of human rights as a part of CSR, we have to address some questions:

• What is important for the understanding of CSR and human rights?
• What are the human rights and where do they come from?
• Why are human rights important for business?
• What kind of human rights are we talking about?
• Are human rights a part of CSR?

Understanding CSR and human rights:

• There is a different background for economic activities in the Anglo-American society and in Europe.
• The EU published in 2001 the Green Paper “Promoting a European Framework for corporate social responsibility”, statingthat companies decide voluntarily to con-tribute to a better society and a cleaner environment.

Talking about human rights - a short historical summary:

• 10th of December 1948: UN Declaration on Human Rights accepted in Paris by the then UN member-states.
• The declaration on human rights is a minimal consensus, signed and/or accepted by all the nations, who later joined the UN.
• Preamble and 30 paragraphs.
• Different additional treaties by UN-organizations, especially by the ILO.

Human rights and business:

• Guidelines and standards of the International Labour Organization ILO.
• Social Accounting International Standard SAI 8000.
• Fairtrade Guidelines from the Fairtrade Labelling Organization FLO.
• Customers want to know the “story of their products” (e.g. eco-friendly, ethical correct value chain) and they are willed to pay more for “good and green products”.

Human rights and CSR?

• Human rights issues are a minimum requirement when talking about CSR.
• CSR has to go far beyond basic human rights standards.
• A pro-active approach can help to create a competitive advantage.