REAP: the heart of UNIDO’s CSR Programme
The Responsible Entrepreneurs Achievement Programme (REAP) is a CSR-based management and reporting tool. It was developed by UNIDO to assist Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in their efforts to implement CSR-based management approaches and operation methods, thereby aligning economic, social and environmental aspects of business (also referred to as “Triple Bottom Line Approach”).
Based on the Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact, as well as international standards in the social and environmental domains, such as ISO 14001, SA 8000, or OHSAS 18001, it provides a structured framework in combination with an analytical software, which can be used to gather, process, evaluate and report data to track progress in implementing CSR in SMEs.
Against the background of the philosophy ‘’Enhancing Responsible Competitiveness through 1-to-1 Assistance’’ the Programme is based on a UNIDO cooperation with qualified local CSR experts who are trained and certified by the Organization.
Challenges
Having emerged from the UNIDO Business Partnership Programme and the UNIDO Cleaner Production approach, REAP specifically aims at:
- Creating a worldwide system of trained and certified UNIDO CSR
Experts for providing 1-to-1 support to SMEs - Helping SMEs to practice responsible entrepreneurship, by translating CSR principles into a commercially viable management approach
- Combining best practices on environmental, social, and financial management, based on engineering principles
- Creating continuous improvement management processes as the basis for successful CSR implementation
- Focusing on implementing CSR principles and standards rather than on reporting