As one of the priorities for the Polish Presidency of the European Union, participants in the Conference on Shared Responsibility organised by the Ministry of Economy in cooperation with the Responsible Business Forum tried to provide answers to the question on how to increase the presence and efficiency of CSR in the European Union. The conference was held at the Polish Baltic Fryderyk Chopin Philharmonic in Gdańsk on 5th September 2011.

Despite an advanced debate at the European level about corporate social responsibility (CSR) relevance in securing a stable growth base, the topic has as yet not been sufficiently well included in the process of determining the EU and member states' development policies. Within this framework, the main purpose of the Shared responsibility – how to increase visibility and effectiveness of the EU CSR framework Conference focused in drawing public attention to the need for EU policy cohesion in the area of CSR, by confronting the points of view from public administrations and from social and economic partners within the timeframes of the "Europe 2020 Strategy" for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth and the Vision 2050 Report published by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

Participants of the conference included experts, politicians, representatives of central administration and international organisations including the European Commission and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and also entrepreneurs, non-governmental organisations, and representatives of the academia. Over two days they analysed the experiences gathered so far by administrations and social partners, and discussed how to shape the economic policy of the EU based on the principles of CSR and sustainable development.

Conclusions from the conference will be presented to the European Commission in the form of a Presidency Report, to be used in the final work on the new European Commission Communication on CSR, which is to be published by September 2011. The conference included numerous workshop sessions discussing dialogue, social economy, consumer innovation, CSR measurement and monitoring, responsible investment, and CSR management standards.