The Spanish Banks in face of the Corporate Social Responsibility Standards: previous analysis of the financial crisis

Abstract

Transparency of information in the field of CSR (Corporate SocialResponsibility) is common to various standards. In recent years therehas been a proliferation of standards and models for the formalizationof CSR strategies. The objective is to assess the degree ofimplementation of standards of normalization. The analysis was conductedwith data from the year 2008, coinciding with the first signs of thefinancial crisis, serving as a reference point to analyze the effect ofthe crisis. The field work was conducted using a survey answered by 57Spanish credit institutions. We found a low degree of implementation ofstandards. The GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) and the ISO 14001 stoodout. In view of the orientation of credit institutions towards themarket, Banks have incorporated much more elaborated and comprehensivequality standards than other credit institutions, such as theimplementation of the standard AS 1000 that is equivalent to the jointimplementation of the ISO 14000 and 9000.