Turkish Enterprise and Business Confederation (TÜRKONFED) aims to place the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Turkey, which is defined as the voluntary integration of companies’ social and environmental sensitivity into their work and relation with other institutions, and in this regard it reached out to almost 500 SMEs.

The Social Responsibility among Small and Medium Sized Enterprises Project, which was implemented in partnership with the Corporate Social Responsibility Society in Turkey and the Dutch MVO Holland, had been developed  to provide SMEs with a sustainable competitiveness competency through corporate social responsibility.  During his speech at the project closing meeting, TÜRKONFED Chairman of the Board Tarkan Kadooglu said “We demonstrated,  to SMEs participating in the project that, it was possible to increase the employment  and to grow with corporate social responsibility projects.”

Ministry for European Affairs, Director of Project Implementation Bülent Özcan emphasized that the most important feature of negotiations with the EU is the development of civil society dialogue, and he also added that the project was one of the most successful projects financed under the Civil Society Dialogue Programme. Bernadine Bos, MVO Holland, Director of International Relations and Business Development, said that they aimed to continue and increase cooperation between two countries which started with this project  in governmental, business and commercial issues as well.

Within the scope of the Social Responsibility among Small and Medium Sized Enterprises Project, all SMEs reached were informed about the ways to produce CSR projects and the added value they would create in the Turkish economy through these projects. In addition, SMEs were informed on how to transform into corporate structures through integrating issues such as social, environmental, ethical, human and consumer rights into their daily business activities. Awareness has also been created in the main objectives and principles of the social responsibility policies.

For more information about the project, please visit http://kobilericinkss.org/