The Legislative Assembly of the Krasnoyarsk Territory adopted in the first reading a draft law on the development of responsible business conduct.
The document was developed by representatives of the committee on economics and tax policy of the regional parliament under the leadership of Yegor Vasiliev. It enshrined the concepts of responsible business, a responsible business entity, and measures to support such entrepreneurs. Responsible companies will be included in the regional register.
This law became a regional document enshrining the national standard that appeared in February 2024. He proposes to evaluate a business in three areas: environment, personnel, and government. The rating results are published in the public domain on the website eco-rating.rf. There are already about 7 million enterprises, including regional ones.
“It’s no secret that our companies have been using sustainable development ratings for quite a long time, but these are ratings created according to Western models. Since 2024, the Russian Standard for Responsible Business Conduct has been introduced; it is already applied in 26 regions. It is proposed to extend its use to the territory of the region. The use of a domestic standard, and now a special GOST has been registered, is much more in line with the interests of the Russian Federation than the agenda that is relevant for Western societies. The project was developed jointly with the regional government and is supported by the plenipotentiary representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Siberian Federal District, Anatoly Seryshev,” explained Egor Vasiliev.
He also said that a large package of proposals had already been received from the regional prosecutor’s office in order to fill the law with specific areas of support by the second reading. It is possible to supplement the Standard with your own regional requirements.
“The bill introduces the application of our national standard of fair, socially responsible business conduct in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. It is assessed what efforts the company makes in achieving our national goals in the environment, in demography, in the development of our settlements, including small ones, and our infrastructure. Efforts that are not directly related to the activity, but, nevertheless, bring clear social benefit. This law, which we have adopted in the first reading today, adopts the principle itself in the Krasnoyarsk Territory; a rating of social responsibility will be maintained. Companies that take high places in this ranking will have preferences and priorities in the implementation of our government programs,” explained Egor Vasiliev.
Maxim Markert noted that for now the bill is of a framework nature: “In the past, large enterprises were responsible for the maintenance of social facilities: gyms, recreation centers, schools, and then dumped all this on the shoulders of the state. Maybe by the second reading the specific responsibilities of business should be spelled out in the document.”
Alexander Ratakhin believes that it is worth introducing into the document measures to counter irresponsible businesses that do not pay taxes, salaries, go into the “gray” zone, thereby harming the budget as a whole and their employees, depriving them of pensions and health insurance.
Pavel Semizorov was interested in what preferences a responsible business would receive. Irina Ivanova noted: not everything in this matter falls within the competence of regional legislators; the same concept of “business reputation” is widely used in legal practice, and some measures can only be regulated in federal legislation.
Chairman of the Legislative Assembly Alexey Dodatko called for involving the business community, public unions and the regional trade union organization in the discussion of the bill: “In fact, we are introducing this system as a guideline for our national business, enshrining the corresponding procedures in regional law. This is an important political decision. We are creating conditions for our business to move clearly in the wake of national interests, setting for this purpose value guidelines that can be further implemented within the framework of business models. We are doing this within the limits of our competence, but similar processes are taking place in all regions of the country.”
