The City Council of Paterna, within the framework of the Collaboration Agreement signed between the Association "Paterna City of Business" and the Asociación Sociolidarios, have organized training sessions on Corporate Social Responsibility for SMEs in the city.

Currently, the application of Corporate Social Responsibility standards has become a key element for the competitiveness and productivity of companies since the commitment of companies to social responsibility generates a more innovative corporate culture, more internationally attractive, with more resources to anticipate and adapt to the challenges of a changing and global market. In recent years, the exercise of social responsibility with the priorities of sustainability, social cohesion and the satisfaction of general interests has gradually been incorporated into the Spanish business world.

The training activities included an expert teaching team with a long and proven track record in Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility, highlighting the presence of the director of the Master of CSR at the University of Valencia, Manuel Quilez. For greater effectiveness, the contents were designed taking into account the local business, with a predominance of small and medium-sized companies, which due to their size tend to have less access to information related to CSR and therefore to the implementation in your company.

The workshops that were held on September 13 and 27 and in which more than 20 SMEs from different sectors participated have had the general objective of not only providing a broad vision of the latest trends in the design, development and evaluation of social responsibility strategies of the Company, but the implementation of very practical training actions with the effective participation of the companies.

The participants, in addition to being able to know the national and international legislative field in which these organizational strategies are framed, analyzed and evaluated the contents of the future Law for the Promotion of Social Responsibility of the Valencian Community.

On the other hand, the practical workshops allowed the participating companies to improve the knowledge and skills for the correct diagnosis and formulation of CSR strategies in their organizations and to acquire knowledge and skills about the different methodologies and tools for their implementation.

The success of attendance and the positive evaluation of the participants, has encouraged the City of Paterna to organize future editions and the celebration in November of a Conference where good practices in the field of Social Responsibility are presented by local companies with a long history in its implementation.