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It is with great pleasure that I welcome you to today's workshop co-organised by the Environment Commissioner's Office and the Cyprus Corporate Social Responsibility Network-CSR Cyprus on "Real Corporate Social Responsibility: Preventing Greenwashing in SMEs."
First of all, let me thank the Limassol-Amathus Sewerage Council (LSA) and its Director General Mr. Yannis Tsoulofta for their support in organizing the workshop, and the Limassol Municipality for hosting the workshop at the Innovation and Blue Economy Centre. I would also like to thank the speakers of the workshop for the presentations that will follow and all the participants for being here today.
Today's workshop on "greenwashing" and its prevention is the second in a series of green skills development workshops for SMEs that we are organising in collaboration with CSR Cyprus, with the aim of promoting green skills.
Today's workshop on "greenwashing" and its prevention is the second in a series of green skills development workshops for SMEs that we are organising in collaboration with CSR Cyprus, with the aim of promoting green skills. At this point I would like to thank Mr. Marinos Voukis and CSR Cyprus for their unstinting cooperation in our joint initiative and effort.
Greenwashing refers to the practice where businesses try to present their activities as environmentally friendly, while in reality they do not take effective measures to protect the environment. This practice is a particularly serious problem with worrying implications for society, the environment and the economy itself. It misleads consumers, leading them to make choices that do not really contribute to sustainable development. It also undermines public trust in business when it is revealed that a company is cheating on its environmental practices, which can discourage environmental awareness by diverting attention away from the real environmental challenges and the actions needed to achieve real sustainability. That is why preventing "greenwashing" through effective measures and the implementation of transparent and credible environmental sustainability practices is a priority for us.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) commits companies to consider the social, environmental and ethical impacts of their activities. However, it is distorted through the practice of "greenwashing" as it undermines real efforts to improve the social and environmental performance of companies. It is therefore important to separate true CSR, to which the title of today's workshop refers, from practices aimed at exploiting consumers for commercial gain.
This is why we look forward with great interest to the results of the research conducted by Analytica Market Research on corporate social responsibility issues, which will be presented today in the context of the workshop. The survey was conducted specifically for this workshop on a sample of 800 people and its findings are indicative of citizens' perception of corporate social responsibility issues.
I would like to stress that preventing greenwashing requires a collective effort. By joining forces, consumers, businesses and government, we can create an environment where information, action and transparency in environmental communication promote real sustainable development and reflect the true values of corporate social responsibility.
(NZ/ASP)
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