What does OSR (Organizational Social Responsibility) mean for an Alliance Française?
1/ Definition of OSR
OSR, or Organizational Social Responsibility, is defined as “the contribution of organisations to the challenges of sustainable development”. In other words, it is the integration of today’s social and environmental concerns into all the organisation’s activities, whether in the creation of its products, the organisation of its workspaces, its commercial practices, its regulations or even its method of governance.
Used in business, and known as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), OSR applies to not-for-profit organisations such as the Alliance Française network.
2/ The main pillars of OSR
OSR covers 7 main pillars:
– Respect for human rights
– Fair trade practices
– Improving working conditions
– Protecting the environment
– Contribution to local development
– Corporate governance
– Consumer and public protection
The aim of all these themes is to cover the various social, societal, and environmental issues of today. Dealing with the subject of OSR does not only mean dealing with environmental issues, as the collective imagination may think. OSR covers climate and biodiversity issues, as well as questions of social inclusion, management, and respect for human rights.
3/ Examples from Alliances Françaises around the world
Because an Alliance Française is a not-for-profit organisation that welcomes, educates, and entertains thousands of Francophiles, taking up OSR issues is both an obvious and a daily challenge. To shed light on the actions taken by the Alliances Françaises on this subject, in 2022, Alliances Sonores (a Latin American/Caribbean regional initiative working on issues of eco-responsible culture) conducted a OSR action research project with a dozen pilot Alliances Françaises from the area and from France. As a result of this research, an exhibition was co-imagined and co-created by various Alliances Françaises, including the Alliance Française of Santo-Domingo, Halifax, and Ottawa.
The exhibition is made up of 42 cubes, each cube representing a project, plus 3 signage cubes. On each project cube, we find:
– The location of the project
– One or more photos of the project
– A description of the project
– One or more OSR pillars to which it refers
– A question related to OSR (for example: Can culture be responsible? Can the OSR argument be used as a customer argument? Does OSR give meaning to action?)
– A graphic piece to create a general visual with the 42 cubes whose message is “Commitment is our nature”.
The exhibition is designed to be interactive, with the cubes available for the public to read. It is also intended to be educational; teachers can use it with their pupils to discover places, words and colours, and even create a debate based on the questions. Finally, it has an educational and instructive dimension thanks to the actions put in place, which every structure can draw inspiration from.
We can, for example, find the following actions:
– Reflexology sessions, organised at the Alliance Française de Normandie, to improve working conditions for staff;
– The launch of a Municipal Recycling Centre at the Alliance Française Antigua Guatemala;
– The ecological renovation project for the site and premises of the Alliance Française de Kandy, with Master’s students in Architecture, craftsmen, workers and local authorities;
– The writing and publication of the comic strip Sargassum by the Alliance Française of Santo-Domingo;
– French classes for young people on the theme of climate change and endangered species at the Alliance Française of Kuala Lumpur;
– The “Sport friendly: promoting LGBTQI+ inclusion in sport” exhibition at the Alliance Française of Rosario.
– The sale of plant cuttings by the Alliance Française Halifax to finance environmental projects.
To present these different projects, the Alliance Française Ottawa hosted the exhibition in November 2023. The exhibition can still be seen in the media library!
The Alliance Française Ottawa also organises one environmental education event a month. Other social issues are addressed through the Alliance Française Ottawa’s various cultural events. In April, a clean walk will be organised to bring people together to take action to reduce our impact on biodiversity.
4/ The MOOC RSO to go further
Since 2023, the Alliances Sonores collective (a dynamic group of Alliances Françaises in Latin America and South America involved in OSR issues) has been working on a project entitled “OSR, issues and best practices”. This MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), hosted by the Alliance Française of San Salvador website, consists of nine parts: an introduction, the 7 pillars of OSR and a general conclusion.
This MOOC, which is an online course, enables us to approach the themes of OSR by pillar, through interactive videos and self-assessment questionnaires.
The MOOC is due to be launched in May 2024 and will initially be offered to employees of the Alliances Françaises, before being shared with the public.