Clusters and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

Clusters and the businesses they are composed of carry out more and more group actions built around the question of jobs, skills, the environment and social links. For example, the Pôle des Eco-Industries de Poitou-Charentes, with the support of the DRIRE, accompanies several businesses in an innovative action for implementing CSR actions, which are real strategic approaches providing entrepreneurs with operational responses for entrepreneurs. Others have observed that businesses which, prior to the economic crisis, had adopted a CSR approach, have on average put up a stronger resistance than others.

An institutional form of will power has also been seen to mobilise clusters around this theme. The PACA (Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur) region is currently launching a call for CSR projects that is open to all its regional clusters the PRIDES (Regional clusters for innovation and united economic development). This is in fact the very subject of the next inter-PRIDES open exchange day, scheduled for 23 February and organised by France Clusters in partnership with the PACA region.