The European Commission (EC) has proposed in the last two months a new EU development “agenda for change” and a new strategy on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

The new definition of CSR moves from referring to voluntary actions by companies to “responsibility for impacts on society”. It is recognised that to fully meet their CSR, enterprises should integrate “human rights, ethical and consumer concerns” next to the (more traditional) social, environmental and consumer considerations. The new strategy also emphasises the important role that the private sector can play in achieving the EU development goals, in particular “business models that target the poor as consumers, producers, and distributors help to maximise development impact”. The latter is also one of the important new themes of the new EU development “agenda for change”.