REPORT | Businesses and Regions: Toward Corporate Regional Responsibility? - France Stratégie x CSR Platform

ABSTRACT

The CSR Platform’s opinion paper offers an important analysis of the relationship between businesses and local communities. Its main contribution is to conceptualize territorial responsibility—not as a new form of corporate philanthropy, but as a dynamic of systemic and sustainable cooperation between businesses and local ecosystems. 

The report highlights the factors driving this necessary shift: the ecological transition, resource scarcity, an aging population, skills shortages, digital transformation, regional vulnerabilities, and the pursuit of economic resilience. In this context, the challenges of competitiveness, ecological transition, social cohesion, productive sovereignty, and attractiveness can no longer be addressed separately. The objective isto identify the conditions necessary to transform businesses’ regional roots into a dynamic of sustainable cooperation among businesses, local governments, employees, associations, social and solidarity economy (SSE) actors, educational institutions, citizens, and other stakeholders. 

Its main operational contribution lies inthe articulation of five levers: shared governance, cooperation, integration into regional policies, impact measurement, and mobilization of economic flows. Its main area of concern, however, is the ability to transform a concept that is still relatively new into an operational framework without excessively increasing administrative complexity, particularly for micro-enterprises and SMEs. The issue of measurement also represents a major challenge: the RTE can only truly become a framework for action if its effects can be documented in a robust, comparable, and “proportionate” manner (particularly relative to the size of businesses).

For local governments and economic development agencies, the shift is from a planning approach aimed at attracting business to a collective management approach of territorial resources and constraints. The strategic implication is significant: the challenge is no longer merely to promote a region, but to build and demonstrate the quality of its ecosystem. Territorial responsibility can thus be viewed as an interface between economic policy, ecological transition, social cohesion, skills development, public procurement, and regional attractiveness.

Keywords: territorial anchoring, territorial attractiveness, cooperation, territorial ecosystems, businesses, multilevel governance, territorial impact, corporate social responsibility (CSR), territorial corporate responsibility (TCR), transitions, shared territorial value, France. 

Illustration: © France Stratégie - CSR Platform