{"id":6320,"date":"2025-03-20T18:59:51","date_gmt":"2025-03-20T16:59:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esghub.ro\/?p=6320"},"modified":"2025-05-29T13:16:22","modified_gmt":"2025-05-29T10:16:22","slug":"vsme-business-conduct-indicators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esghub.ro\/en\/vsme-indicatorii-de-conduita-in-afaceri\/","title":{"rendered":"VSME - the voluntary standard for SMEs. Business behaviour indicators"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The VSME is a voluntary standard that provides SMEs with the necessary guidance for rigorous sustainability reporting. By standardising business conduct indicators, VSME simplifies the reporting process, helping SMEs to ensure transparency, accountability and corporate sustainability. This framework, proposed by the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG), helps SMEs to align with increasingly stringent ethics and corporate governance requirements by providing them with the tools for clear and comparable reporting.<\/p>\n<h2>Business conduct indicators<\/h2>\n<p>These indicators are essential for assessing companies' ethical behaviour and corporate social responsibility. They cover several key aspects such as:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Compliance with ethical standards and anti-corruption legislation<\/li>\n<li>Diversity and inclusion practices<\/li>\n<li>Compliance and corporate governance policies<\/li>\n<li>Relations with business partners and supply chain<\/li>\n<li>Mechanisms for reporting irregularities and whistleblower protection<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>By adopting a clear set of standardised indicators, SMEs can demonstrate a strong commitment to ethical principles and more easily gain the trust of investors, partners and regulators.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>\n<h2>Compliance with ethical standards and anti-corruption legislation<\/h2>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>This indicator refers to measures taken by SMEs to ensure ethical behaviour in all aspects of their business. Key aspects include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>implementing a clear code of ethics and code of conduct communicated to all employees and business partners<\/li>\n<li>adopting anti-corruption policies, including prohibition of bribery, conflicts of interest and other illegal practices<\/li>\n<li>training employees to recognise and prevent corruption<\/li>\n<li>implementing internal audit and control mechanisms to prevent and detect unethical behaviour.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol start=\"2\">\n<li>\n<h2>Diversity and inclusion practices<\/h2>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>This indicator reflects SMEs' commitment to creating a fair, diverse and inclusive work environment. The main issues analysed include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>competency-based recruitment and promotion policies, without discrimination on grounds of gender, race, ethnicity, disability, religion or sexual orientation<\/li>\n<li>ensuring fair pay and equal opportunities for all employees<\/li>\n<li>creating a safe working environment free from harassment or discrimination<\/li>\n<li>measures to support employees' work-life balance.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol start=\"3\">\n<li>\n<h2>Compliance and corporate governance policies<\/h2>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Compliance and corporate governance ensures that SMEs operate in compliance with applicable laws and regulations and have clear decision-making structures. Relevant indicators include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the existence of a clear governance structure with well-defined roles and responsibilities<\/li>\n<li>implementing internal control procedures to ensure compliance with financial and legal regulations<\/li>\n<li>publishing transparency reports on the company's activities and performance<\/li>\n<li>alignment with international corporate governance principles, such as those established by the OECD or the UN.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol start=\"4\">\n<li>\n<h2>Relations with business partners and supply chain<\/h2>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>This indicator measures the responsibility of SMEs towards ethical and sustainable business practices. Aspects analysed include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>applying ethical criteria in the selection of suppliers and business partners<\/li>\n<li>the existence of codes of conduct for suppliers, requiring respect for labour rights, environmental protection and prevention of corruption<\/li>\n<li>monitoring and assessing business partners to prevent risks related to labour exploitation, pollution or fraud<\/li>\n<li>promoting responsible business practices, including paying suppliers on time and honouring contracts.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol start=\"5\">\n<li>\n<h2>Mechanisms for reporting irregularities and whistleblower protection<\/h2>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>In order for SMEs to be able to identify and correct unethical behaviour, clear mechanisms for reporting irregularities are essential. Key issues include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>creating a confidential reporting channel where employees and partners can report ethical breaches<\/li>\n<li>implementing whistleblower protection policies to prevent retaliation against whistleblowers who report wrongdoing<\/li>\n<li>swift and impartial investigation of complaints about corruption, fraud or abuse in the workplace<\/li>\n<li>ensuring that ethics and compliance reports are regularly reviewed and the organisation takes action to remedy identified problems.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Standardul VSME este un standard voluntar care ofer\u0103 IMM-urilor ghidarea necesar\u0103 pentru o raportare riguroas\u0103 a sustenabilit\u0103\u021bii. Prin standardizarea indicatorilor de conduit\u0103 \u00een afaceri, VSME simplific\u0103 procesul de raportare, ajut\u00e2nd IMM-urile s\u0103 asigure transparen\u021b\u0103, responsabilitate \u0219i sustenabilitate corporativ\u0103. Acest cadru, propus de EFRAG (European Financial Reporting Advisory Group), contribuie la alinierea IMM-urilor la cerin\u021bele tot [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6322,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":11,"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-standarde"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esghub.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esghub.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esghub.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esghub.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esghub.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6320"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/esghub.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6329,"href":"https:\/\/esghub.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6320\/revisions\/6329"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esghub.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esghub.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esghub.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esghub.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}