The Declaration

Sitges Declaration
for Socially Responsible Territories

The development that the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is experiencing brings an opportunity to rethink the society in itself and the relations with the market. Further to global trends, every country defines its own model of CSR according to its historical and economical context and it also incorporates the society pattern that it seeks, understanding that the CSR means a great changing force.

We believe a Socially Responsible Territory (SRT) to be the one which tends to sustainability facing in a proactive way its economical, social and environmental challenges, starting from the Social Responsibility of each organization, developing its tangible and intangible assets by the means of collaborative strategies and multistakeholder commitments, with efficient solutions that create values for all parties and that, from a sustainable view of territory, contribute to development and to World sustainability.

In order to help conform a pattern and a strategy of promotion of SRT from a multilateral approach; people belonging to very diverse organizations DECLARE that:

1. We state the increasing relevance of the Social Responsibility commitments and its ability to develop better organizational patterns that facilite sustainability and increase the quality of employment;

2. We believe that there is a need to foster the development of Socially Responsible Territories that manage and improve their sustainable impact at the economical, environmental, social, labour and cultural fields, making a competitive economy compatible with social cohesion and the improvement of the quality of life;

3. We are convinced that the role of people, as consumers, employees, investors, citizens... is key to the development of a SRT, always with the support of social agents, the mass media, educational and training centres, actively committed;

4. We are willing to promote a dialogue and an consensus among the parties in order to create social infrastructures that allow the generation of synergies in favour of the territory as a whole and the improvement of governance;

5. We advocate for a development of territories that appraise its immaterial assets and manage them as collective wealth linked to the own identity, capable of improving regional competitiveness through civic, enterpreneurship, social, environmental and ethical values, a respect to cultural diversity, a learning and improvement spirit.

6. We defend a territorial pattern that sets human rights and global sustainability at the centre of corporate activity and where corporations themselves export their best practices everywhere where they operate, collaborating with the making of every territory of the world responsible.

Finally, we CALL UPON agents of every territory, public, commercial or social, to:

1. Manage actively Social Responsibility in itself, with concrete good practices and with a coherent corporate or organizational pattern;

2. Establish dialogue processes with the stakeholders so that organizations learn, develop, improve their impacts, gain legitimacy and go forward in the culture of consensus;

3. Make one's own the challenges and concerns of society and develop successful strategies that give the maximal value to all parties and the territory as a whole;

4. Develop in a way that the assets of the territory in itself, from social capital to reputation, prosper as a result of complicity and community commitment

Sitges, 2nd of May 2007