Assessment of Corporate Social Responsibility Measures in Energy Sector

Abstract

Energy companies are in the spotlight regarding the environmental pressure to address current environmental issues by initiating sets of social responsibilities. Energy sector companies are actively adopting Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices to address the increased pressure and enablement to manage and prevent risks of environmental impact together with concentrating on economic growth. Current study provides a systematic literature review identifying CSR initiative measures toward sustainability and proposes a framework of CSR measurements in the energy sector. The framework combines the Search, Appraisal, Synthesis, and Analysis (SALSA) method together with Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) and PSALSAR (Protocol, Search, Appraisal, Synthesis, Analysis and Report). Moreover, for setting the research scope PICOC (Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome, and Context) is applied. As a result, eleven CSR measures for the energy sector were identified: environmental impact, reduction of GHG emissions, green energy innovations, CSR reporting, competitiveness, stakeholder engagements, branding and reputation, financial performance, the price for green energy, employees' safety and business strategy and corporate culture. The measurements were classified into 4 pillars: Environmental pillar, stakeholder communication and external image, financial pillar, and organizational pillar. Furthermore, research results were discussed and a future research agenda together with policy recommendations were provided.