Hi Tetyana,

As I can see it, Corporate Social Responsibility is a form of corporate self-regulation integrated in a business. It would participate in increasing the sustainability of the business if this is coupled with a reduction of the environmental impacts of that business and an improvement of the economic dimension.

CSR actually can have a very powerful impact on the company. If it pursues CSR meaningfully it can significantly drive innovation, which can result in creating even competitive advantage. I remember reading a case study of maybe Swedish (but def. Northern European) chemical (?) company, which wanted to reduce the waste output, but eventually it came up with a technology that provided the company with significant advantage over its competitors. I think they found way to reuse the waste output of some product to produce smtg else (not completely sure about the story, which may be found in International Business Strategy (Verbeke 2013)) - but the outcome was a significant and even long term competitive advantage.

It should actually have a positive impact! But as mentioned in another discussion the problem remains US and our distorted ways of implementation! 

Corporate social responsibility, often abbreviated "CSR," is a corporation’s initiatives to assess and take responsibility for the company's effects on environmental and social wellbeing. The European Commission believes that CSR is important for the sustainability, competitiveness, and innovation of EU enterprises and the EU economy. It brings benefits for risk management, cost savings, access to capital, customer relationships, and human resource management.

Daniel - hahaha! "He is us" - this is brilliant :D

Environmental impact is a key dimension of CSR/CSP(corporate social performance).  Some studies will look at "environmental CSP," which generally seems to be more-or-less the same as a company's sustainability initiatives.  Interestingly, Mattingly and Berman (2006) found that data from one of the main sources of CSP data, KLD, suggests that companies that score high on environmental CSP are also the ones that score high on environmental corporate social irresponsibility (environmental concerns, as KLD labels them).  This finding supports the comments above about thee being issues with implementation.  

But I would also argue that CSP has a place in sustainability studies for other reasons.  CSP includes the company's performance with regard to a variety of stakeholders, including, for example employees.  Tang et al. (2012) and Rothenberg et al. (2017) indicate that the company's employee-related CSP plays an important role in making other dimensions of CSP more successful (Rothenberg et al., 2017) and more profitable (Tang et al., 2012).  If you focus only on environmental issues, you will overlook how the other dimensions of CSP affect the success and profitability of sustainability initiatives.

Works Cited (links to RG copies included):

Mattingly, J. E., & Berman, S. L. (2006). Measurement of corporate social action discovering taxonomy in the Kinder Lydenburg Domini ratings data. Business & Society, 45(1), 20-46. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258126714_Measurement_of_Corporate_Social_Action_Discovering_Taxonomy_in_the_Kinder_Lydenburg_Domini_Ratings_Data

Rothenberg, S., Hull, C. E., & Tang, Z. (2017). The impact of human resource management on corporate social performance strengths and concerns. Business & Society, 56 (3), 391-418. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259754308_The_Impact_of_Human_Resource_Management_on_Corporate_Social_Performance_Strengths_and_Concerns?

Tang, Z., Hull, C. E., & Rothenberg, S. (2012). How corporate social responsibility engagement strategy moderates the CSR–financial performance relationship. Journal of Management Studies, 49(7), 1274-1303. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254934222_How_Corporate_Social_Responsibility_Engagement_Strategy_Moderates_the_CSR-Financial_Performance_Relationship?

Article Measurement of Corporate Social Action: Discovering Taxonomy...

Article The Impact of Human Resource Management on Corporate Social ...

Article How Corporate Social Responsibility Engagement Strategy Mode...

Clyde - thank you! This is a very good answer

CSR if developed in the right and ethical way it will contribute in creating a sustainable competitive advantage for the corporation, when the corporation builds its mission to help the society or enviroment at the same time to make a profit that can help it keep going and growing, it will defenitly successed. A tiny example, we have a toy shop nearby in out town that bought old toys, fixed them and gave them for refugees, this act increased the small enterprise good reputation and lead to a good word of mouth, mow PR inreturns more costumers and consumers started buying from this shop which made it grow until it opened a larger storewhich created a sustainable competitive advantage for them by the good reputation they built and still building, they didnt stop helping refugees, they also by this are recycling the old toys and providing more vacancies for poor people to help them in this project which created sustainabilty for them.

Hope my answer helps

Dear Tetyana,

In this paper we discuss the relationship between SC and CSR.

Hope it helps and feel free to contact me.

Thank you, Marta - this is very helpful

For me Sustainable development is articulated around the concept of sustainability which is about meeting our needs without compromising on future generations to meet theirs. In simple terms, it means let's develop but let's not contaminate water, let's replant trees, let's reduce waste and pollution, let's leave to future generations some natural resources for them to exploit as well, it's mostly future oriented. CSR instead is about giving back to the communities in which a company operate by sharing with profits with them. However, CSR and sustainability are not self-exclusive. Effective CSR should be sustainable by enabling communities to become sustainable and self reliant to be able to prosper even in the absence of corporates.

Challenge: Science, Technology, and Innovation and the Triple Bottom Line, available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305491244_Challenge_Science_Technology_and_Innovation_and_the_Triple_Bottom_Line, covers much related ground and may be of interest. The presentation  defines the "Triple Bottom Line" framework of people—planet—profit and spells out how business can contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals.

Presentation Challenge: Science, Technology, and Innovation and the Tripl...

you might get some ideas from this work : Doctoral thesis 2011. Poverty alleviation through corporate social responsibility: an empirical study on transnational ... Author: Martina Wuttke

http://www.ecorys.com/expertise/economic/sdcsr/sustainable-development-corporate-social-responsibility