Purpose of the Award: The purpose of the Lithuanian Annual CSR Award is to
raise awareness of and encourage good CSR practice among companies in
Lithuania – therefore every step in the Award Process should be designed to
reflect these goals.

Format of the Award: There will be three award categories, each with three
sub-categories rewarding SMEs, large national, and foreign-owned multinational
companies separately.

In this report, four award category options are proposed, to be selected at
the discretion of the Ministry. These are:
Being an Employer of Choice - recognizing companies for the quality of their
workplace conditions and their level of attractiveness to potential employees;
Valuing and Utilization of Diversity - recognizing companies for valuing and
utilizing diversity among employees and customers for business success, and
as a contribution to fostering diversity in society;
Adding Value to Local & Global Community - recognizing the quality of value
brought by companies to both the local and global communities;
Best Overall Social Responsibility Performance - recognizing the company
with not only top scores in the above categories, but also demonstrating
most visible progress in its overall CSR development.
Evaluation criteria: Following the example of leading cases, this award is
designed to reward companies’ overall CSR strategies and performance as
regards the different award categories, and not specific initiatives or projects.
Therefore, the evaluation criteria aim to evaluate the level of integration into
the business, from strategy into operations, aiming for effective and concrete
improvements, aligned to the needs of the business and its stakeholders.
This approach may seem “advanced” for the Lithuanian business
environment, where CSR has only recently been introduced; however, in
accordance with the expectations of the UNDP and the Ministry, this award
model is purposefully designed so that the process of applying for the award
is in itself an important support to the development of the companies’ CSR
understanding, thinking and actions. The intention is that these
developments will accelerate and become increasingly tangible over the next
years, with the yearly repetition of the award.
Thus, the evaluation process will focus on the following criteria:
1. Identification of CSR issues: What key CSR issues has the company
identified relating to the award categories? What issues are not being
addressed and why?
2. Engagement with stakeholders: Have key stakeholders been engaged
with? How?
3. Development of strategic direction, action plan and KPIs: What
strategic directions, action plans and KPIs have been put in place?
4. Implementation & monitoring of progress: Have these action plans
been implemented and has monitoring of progress been done? How
successfully have targets been met?
5. Reporting, gathering & integration of feedback: What reporting &
gathering of feedback has been done? How have these been integrated
into next steps?
When evaluating submissions, determining factors will be the format of the
submission form, that must effectively support the companies in
demonstrating how they have been working strategically with the award
issues; and the quality, breadth and commitment of the judging panel, whom
must have the ability to evaluate the submissions relative to the specific
contexts of the submitting companies, while effectively representing a wide
range of stakeholder constituencies and their interests and needs.
One final recommendation regards the name for the award: Please note that
it is important not to use ”CSR” in the title of the award. The reason for this
is that this award is, at present, not intended to cover the full scope of what
is today commonly referred to as “Corporate Social Responsibility”, which
includes Environmental Responsibility. We therefore propose you develop a
name for the award programme that matches its focus areas. Two examples
of possible titles: Corporate Leadership in Social Responsibility, or Corporate
Leadership in Labour and Social Responsibility.