Please see Sustainable Business: Key issues http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415739528/

We have dealt with the question of sustainability and CSR in great detail...

Dear Helen,

Many thanks for your input. I will surely look into it.

Best 

Luis

Garriga and Melé (2004, p. 51) classified the main CSR theories and related approaches in four groups: 

instrumental theories, in which the corporation is seen as only an instrument for wealth creation, and its social activities are only a means to achieve economic results;

political theories, which concern themselves with the power of corporations in society and a responsible use of this power in the political arena;

integrative theories, in which the corporation is focused on the satisfaction of social demands; and

ethical theories, based on ethical responsibilities of corporations to society.

For example, Friedman’s viewpoint that the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits characterizes the 1st group while the theory of sustainability as well as Freeman’s stakeholder normative theory belong to the fourth group (Ibid).

Garriga, E. & Melé, D. (2004). Corporate social responsibility theories: Mapping the territory. Journal of Business Ethics, 53(1/2), 51-71.

I agree with your stand point, Luis.  

CSR and Sustainability are related but not inter-changeable. I also came scross scholars put these two terms as inter-changeable.

Generally, CSR is defined as the voluntary activities undertaken by a company / organization to operate in an economic, social and environmentally sustainable manner.

According to David Wheeler, Barry Colbert and R. Edward Freeman in their write up titled "Focusing on Value: Reconciling Corporate Social Responsibility, Sustainability

and a Stakeholder Approach in a Network World", they believe that a business model that places value creation at its core will allow concepts of CSR, sustainability and the stakeholder approach to complement into each other, whether at a strategic or a managerial level.

Regards

Dear Luis,

In my view sustainable development and CSR share in common that they are both nice-sounding, but vaguely and often abitrarily defined concepts that present a "wish list" of what shall be done or avoided (globally, locally, by policy-makers, companies and citizens...). The trouble is that both are normative concepts, for which no objective assessment criteria can be defined. This, in my view, calls for the need of using complementary theory (e.g. economic or ecological theories; it doesn't need a new "sustainability theory" but I think we can simply use what's already there) for conceptualizing and empirically assessing both SD and CSR.

According to my personal experience, achieving sustainability in all its dimensions at the same time, while desirable, is impossible in practice. So it's perhaps better to focus on one particular, clearly defined objective at a time (e.g. ecological sustainability), while keeping an eye on the other dimensions as well. Then it's inevitably a negotiation process between stakeholders to agree on how and to which extend to reach that objective (e.g. how much ecological sustainability is acceptable to other stakeholders, whose economic or social needs might be compromised for ecological sustainability?). What will you offer these affected stakeholders (e.g. a poor community suffering from natural resource use restrictions, when a new protected area is gazetted in their area)?

So to me, sustainability in practice is about balancing and negotiating various objectives and eventually finding a compromise... As regards CSR I won't spend much time now on definitions; a good one was already provided by Mei Peng Low. However, all CSR activities need to demonstrate their impact on society, and whether they achieve their objectives (no matter whether they are motivated by business interests or are genuinely philanthropic). Hence, in my view, more studies on the impacts of CSR on stakeholders and affected people are needed.

Best regards,

Martina

Dear Lee, Mei and Martina,

Many thanks for your inputs.

From the theoretical side I usually frame then within Stakeholder Theory (Freeman, 1984) and RBV (Barney, 1991).

I also have made some thought about the relationship with Organizational Theories and find out these area multidisciplinary issues with people from many different backgrounds. It does strengths the debate, however, there are multiple views and definitions, e.g. subtle differences between European and US academic and practitioners approaches.

It is interesting your point the need to balancing and compromising. A field  I am trying to follow is how to turn antagonistic assets into complementary ones.

Another alternative might be to use CSR and sustainability as ‘‘umbrella constructs’’ in the sense of Hirsch and Levin’s (1999, pp. 200) description of an

umbrella construct as ‘‘a broad concept or idea used loosely to encompass and account for a broad set of diverse phenomena’’.

Best

Luis

CSR is a subset of sustainability. Sustainability requires one to follow a continuous process to improve on triple bottom line; and CSR is a way of going about it in corporate world. 

Dear Jyoti,

Many thanks for your reply. Other way to see it (at least in Europe) is both aim for Triple Bottom Line but at different levels: CSR at organizational level, Sustainability at Government and Multi-Governmental level(e.g. United Nations Brundtland Report).

Best

Luis

I concur with Jyoti that CSR may be seen as a subset of sustainability. Sustainability is much boarder and longterm aiming at balancing present and future needs of humanity ie meeting "the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (sustainable development). On the other hand the balancing aspect is not very much emphasised in CSR, for instance sometimes as long as the company gives back something to the society is considered being social responsive despite the quantity of negative impact sustainability wise.

Sustainability is an ill defined term and is often used for different things. At the level of organisations, there is an overlap between CSR and sustainability. At the level of produccts, CSR is not used but may contribute to social life cycle assessment.

Life Cycle Sustainability of products is defined by the three pillar (or triple bottom line) model as follows:

LCSA = LCA + LCC + SLCA

LCSA:   Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment

LCA: Life Cycle Assessment

LCC: Life Cycle Costing

SLCA: Social Life Cycle Assessment

I have published about this topic, see also a recent LCSA report by UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative.(Paris).

Regards

Walter Kloepffer

Dear Walter,

Thanks for your reply. I will look into your publications to gather further knowledge.

Best Regards

Luis 

Dear Luis Fonseca,

these concepts started from differences in time, definitions and cases; but now they have converged to a single (and broad) concept as explained in these two excellent articles:

Montiel, I. (2008) Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Sustainability: Separate Pasts, Common Futures. Organization & Environment, 21(3): 245-269.

http://oae.sagepub.com/content/21/3/245.abstract

Montiel, I. & Delgado-Ceballos, J. (2014) Defining and Measuring Corporate Sustainability: Are We There Yet? Organization & Environment, (Published online before print) April 4, doi:10.1177/1086026614526413

http://oae.sagepub.com/content/…/2014/04/03/1086026614526413

Best regards, Farley

Dear Farley,

Many thanks for sharing.

I will study your works.

In fact some authors have been in favor of using CSR and Sustainability and CSR ‘as ‘umbrella constructs, meaning a broad concept or idea used loosely to encompass and account for a broad set of diverse phenomena’’ (Gond and Crane, 2010, pp. 680-681)..

Muito obrigado. e um abraço

Luis

Dear Luis,

Sometimes, it is said that a social LCA is similar to CSR. But actually, in my opinion they are very different. This is because sLCA measures impacts along the full life cycle of a product while CSR is a management tool that typically focuses on the production phase. Moreover, sLCA uses information gathered at company, plant and process level while CSR only uses management information at company level. (Ramirez & Petti, 2011). sLCA is only one component (the social one) in a full sustainability assessment. 

I hope this information is useful for you.

Best regards,

Rob Hoogmartens (Hasselt University, Belgium)

Dear Rob,

Thanks for your reply. I am aware there is indeed that line of thought, thanks for sharing it.

Best

Luis

Too much fooling around, too many articles on the subject. Sustainability is a voluntary and smart attitude for staying in doing what one wants to do (with proper care from the economic, social and environmental standpoints) and CSR (and similar expressions) is to respond for damages caused to third parties (environment included) and to pay for reverting the consequences.

Dear João,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Abraço

Luis Fonseca

Thanks for your points, Jay.

Best

Luis

There is an article that talk about the evolution of the concept. It is the following:

Desta Mebratu (1998): SUSTAINABILITY AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: HISTORICAL AND CONCEPTUAL REVIEW. ENVIRON IMPACT ASSES REV, 18: 493–520.

I think it is very interesting. I recommend it. I attached this article in a pdf format.

Best,

Alicia

Dear Alicia,

Many thanks for sharing.

Muchas Gracias.

Saludos

Lus

Dear Alicia,

thank you for sharing this article with us!

Kind regards

Walter Kloepffer

It's my pleasure.

Over the years we see that the various concepts influence each other. This is a dynamic phenomenon, so that differences in definition cannot be solved 'statically'.

Therefore, there seems to be a large degree of overlap. Nonetheless, individual authors have the freedom to use their own delineations.

CSR seems to be more about transparancy, reporting and stakeholder management. Sustainability is more about the sustainable nature of the production processes themselves. Sustainability involves the interests of future generations. So, even if no stakeholder bothers, a company claiming wanting to be sustainable should consider the future generation's interests at all times. 

For the rest I see overlaps in various degrees. I would not mind saying that today CSR and corporate sustainability are synonyms unless explicitly differentiated by authors.

Dear Teun,

Thanks for your reply. I also like the idea already expressed by others of  

umbrella construct as ‘‘a broad concept or idea used loosely to encompass and account for a broad set of diverse phenomena’’. So let´s focus on research to understand and improve.

The potential problem is that if we are note dealing with the same construct and there are quite different methodological approach we may end up with inconsistency results.

Also a good point of not being static, but rather act as "Learning Organizations".

Best Regards

Luis

Sustainability is a wide concept, with no full agreement on means to achieve it or pursue it. Generally it is framed under the Triple Bottom Line schema (ecological, economic, and social balance), but several authors include other dimensions (as, for instance, Igancy Sachs includes cultural and  technological dimension). I particularly think that a third dimension frame for sustainability is not enough. The matter is what is being framed when we scope sustainability, who is the issue to sustain, for whom, for how long, and at which scale? Therefore, sustainability is firstly a matter of discussion, commitment, pursuing of agreement, partial or not. It is about knowledge and awareness for planning a better (more fair) future through social justice. People ask me what does it mean to study sustainability, and many times I answer "I guess I am studying something that is about to come, but I cannot reach, or something that I pursue, but does not actually exist, I cannot grasp it."  Corporate social responsibility is much more easy to understand, because it is about commitment of organisations towards their direct and indirect  stakeholders, about how they manage resources (material, relational, human) to achieve better results for the organisation as well as for involved people. There is much more normatisation about CSR than about sustainability, because sustainability seems to be a "fit to all"  when we think about planning the future of societies. As long as I remember, the first published article on CSR is "Corporate Social Responsibility",  found in the journal "Business and Society", p. 268-295, 1999, from Archie Carroll. You can also find more on CSR in the World Business Council website, and in Global Reporting Initiative (https://www.globalreporting.org/Pages/default.aspx ), or accessing AA 1000 standard. Best regards.

Hi Claudia.

Thanks for your very interesting contributions. I also think that more dimensions should be added to the Sustainability construct and have submitted one article on this (awaiting decision).

Being from a "brother country" (Portugal) I think the perspectives in Europe and US are slightly different (e.g., e on philanthropy role) and even Carrol, a must reference on this issue, has evolved his thought (e.g., see Carrol and Schwartz, 2003). 

Medium to big companies do use GRI, and very brig ones also go tfor DJSI or other Sustainability Indexes. Some are trying to experience ISO 26000 (Brasil had an importante role on this), UN Global Compact and others ISO 9001/ISO 14001/OHSAS 18001/SA 8000, and so on.

Each approach has its defenders and my main interest with this question was to gather interesting views form other researchers on this, like you have done so well.

Muito obrigado.

Best  Regards

Luis 

Dear Luis, I do agree with your considerations. Lately, I am quite concerned with the lack of "practical reason" on sustainability, as we have tons of publications, but effective articulation for a better quality of life is lacking. Best regards. Obrigada!

The history of CSR goes back a long way, while Sustainability is relatively recent. My own definition of CSR is, briefly, treating key stakeholders responsibly (full definition on www.mhcinternational.com...since taken up by ISO26000, EU, WBSCD..no I don't claim to have influenced these simply I was there before these latter advances) which I concocted in the mid 1990s in my book 'The Planetary Bargain' influenced by Archie Carroll, Donna Wood, Ed Freeman to name but a few of the early pioneers.

I have struggled with Sustainability (I like Claudia's views expressed above) for many years. First, following Brundtland seeing Sustainability as caring for the future without harming the present. Then second, the Sustainability concept grew out of the environmental movement then greatly helped by John Elkington's triple bottom line that extended Sustainability into multi-stakeholder initiatives. Well so much for a potted history..my forthcoming CSR Text Book treats the issues in more depth.

So I saw CSR as the umbrella concept for companies and institutions to behave responsibly i.e. a process while seeing Sustainability as the goal. More recently while working on GRI G4 guidelines my views changed a little as GRI used the concepts of multi-stakeholder and materiality ('key' stakeholders). I started to think that CSR and Sustainability might well be synonyms. But then my 'feelings' took over and I felt that too much 'Sustainability' was confusing the space and that companies especially were happy to focus on sustainable environments rather than looking at all key stakeholders. It is rare indeed for sustainability to cover things like corporate governance, executive pay, corruption, human rights etc.and, of course, to emphasise the business case which must be the Occam's razor for CSR policy. As an aside I continue to be astonished that GRI does not mention CSR in its G4 guidelines – I have taken that up with them but so far a deafening silence!

Returning to CSR, we can also see the concept being used in a uni-stakeholder manner - such as India's emphasis (more or less) on CSR projects and as I saw yesterday the UN's population agency UNFPA announcing its proud CSR programme to work with adolescent girls. Now nothing wrong with either of these approaches but they are, simply, partial stakeholder not multi-stakeholder approaches.

So right now I see CSR as the dominant concept and Sustainability weakening a little due to its over-emphasis on environmental issues. Proof? Well a poor one is looking at Google references to CSR (172million) and Sustainability (118million) as of Feb 2015...when I have done that before a few years back Sustainability had more references.

A final word that has also oft troubled me. When a company launches a new product or service it is very careful how it defines its product. Intel for instance used to be all over the place with its use of CSR, CR, SR, Sustainability, Citizenship, Ethical behaviour etc etc. Yet when it launches a new chip it must be incredibly precise so as not to create errors. Rarely do we see company reports defining what they mean by the terms they use. Boring possibly? I don’t know but the contributors here certainly awakened me. Thanks!

Dear Michael,

Many thanks for your great recap of these relevant issues and such a complete and detailed feedback. Please be aware that ISO is spreading the concept of "Interested parties" that are relevant to the Quality Management System (future ISO 9001:2015) and to the Environmental Management System (future ISO 14001:2015.

Best Regards

Luis Fonseca 

With regard to Michael´s remark that Sustainability is mainly about environmental problems: this has to do with Life Cycle Assessment (LCA):

Klöpffer, W. (2008): Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment of Products. Int. J. Life Cycle Assess 13 (2) 89-94

We have an excellent tool to study the environmental "pillar" of LIfe Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA), whereas the Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA) is much less developed. The third pillar, Life Cycle Costing (LCC) is older than LCA and SLCA and has been used in industry for a long time.

The term sustainable (in German: "nachhaltig") originates from forestry (early 18th century), in French translation "soutenue" and finally "sustainable" in English to become famous in the Brundtland Report on sutainable development. As I already wrote, the term is ill defined today and has different meanings.

Thanks to all contributors for this discussion.

Hi,

Sustainability is a broader concept than CSR is. Sustainability refers to the bottom line from an ecology and economic perspective. In fact the latest years there is a tendency, in management studies,  to the construct of the Triple Bottom Line (TBL). TBL incorporates the principle of integration of People (social),  Profit (economy), and Planet (ecology) - (3P's) as a scope of business. Thus, aiming for 3P's makes a business sustainable.

There is much debate about CSR and many, many, ... more definitions. Into my knowledge, I can tell that CSR is a principle that concerns philanthropy, social giving, and a principle of competitiveness. I'm sure you have read the maxim "Doing Good is Good Business". it's a bit complicated to whom CSR  appeals to. To shareholders, to stakeholders, to the society in general, to the local community? There is vast literature especial in the Organization, Management, and Ethics of Business studies.

regardless on what point of view a researcher standing, the Use of CSR can positive benefit a company or organization in the long run, and thus can contribute to its sustainability efforts.

In conclusion CSR is a path to Sustainability and sustainable business. Researchers should not confuse it with Sustainability. CSR is the Corner Stone but not the Pyramid of the Sustainability  building.

Best Regards,

Vaios Kyriakis

PhD Student

Hi Vaios,

Many thanks for your contribution.

In fact there are those that approach these issues with an Instrumental perspective (lets do it because it will be good for us) while other have more of an ethical perspective (let´s do it because it is the right thing to do).

Indeed there are no lack of Sustainability and CSR definitions and in my opinion this one of the reasons why research studies are sometimes inconclusive and eve contradictory (different constructs with different dimensions). It  is a multidisciplinary field where you can find researchers with quite different backgrounds but for me this diversity is really value added. 

Wishing you the Best.

Luis Fonseca 

Hi Luis,

I couldn't agree more. Both issues should be studied from both views-perspectives. My field of research is CSR in sports industry. Sports by definition is a multidisciplinary  field. My skeptic for studying CSR is that CSR is, or at least should be, Context and Content Specific. Only, within this prism or lens a research is safe to study CSR and Sustainability efforts of phenomena. In my opinion a research synthesis or a meta analysis on both issues is needed. Of course, because much of the body of knowledge is qualitative in nature a research synthesis, what we know or what we don't know, about both topics would be hard to complete....

Best regards

Vaios

Dear Vaios,

In my view, you are right on target.

Wishing you the best on your research work, from a fellow sportsman (swimmer, runner, motorcycle racing). In the past I did more individual sports, but now I do realize team sports are more suitable for today´s world.

Best

Luis

Yes, CSR is a path to Sustainability but no proof.  Can we have Sustainability without CSR?  No.  May we have CSR without a Sustainability outcome..umm quite possibly!

By the way I started a Linkedin group discussion on CSR and Sport you may be interested in.  I also set out a CSR strategy for UEFA - check their website if you can find it - which shows the impact I had n'est-ce pas?

Dear Luis,

Yes Today's world needs more team players. However, sports and sport events that use natural landscape as their physical setting (i.e. Alpine Ski etc.) have more responsibilities in the preserve of environment. Most work done about CSR and Sports have studied Team Sports like Football, Basketball, and American Football in the realm of community contribution and social "giving". There is lack of studies of CSR regarding individual sports.  Admittedly a lot of work has to be done in the field of sports Corporate and Social Responsibility. Only in recent years we see a top to bottom initiatives in the Sport Sector, trying to embrace and include the CSR and Sustainability concepts. Bright paradigms are the IOC, FIFA, and UCI (Cyclists) to name some. CSR in sports is in pristine stages.

All the Best

Vaios

Dear Vaios,

Great to know you are also a sport expert.: Mens sana in corpore sano or Ένα υγιές μυαλό σε ένα υγιές σώμα.

Best

Luis

Hello,

In response to the question:  - Let´s be pragmatic and improve the economic, environmental and social performance at all levels, regardless of definitions;

One of the challenges is measuring performance. It is important to have goals and to be able to measure progress toward those goals, with the idea that what gets measured, gets managed.  However, in order to establish goals, it is important to decide on definitions and objectives of a CSR program. The objectives of CSR, clearly stated or implicit, vary significantly across companies, ranging from more of an ethical approach, such as Polman with Unilever or the B-corporation model in the US, to window dressing or greenwashing.  To be able to measure performance, definitions and goals are important.

An interesting paper is Wood (2010).  She provides an extensive review and analysis of efforts to measure corporate social performance (CSP).  One of the directions is to move beyond the CSP - financial performance question to focusing on the measurement of outcomes for a wider range of stakeholders, including society.

There is work to be done.

Robert Rebman

Reference

Wood, D. J. (2010). Measuring Corporate Social Peformance: A Review. International Journal of Management Reviews, 50-84. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2370.2009.00274.x

Dear Robert,

Many thanks for your inputs and for the suggested paper that I pay due attention.

I share a pragmatic approach for Sustainability and CSR with mix relevance + rigor approach.

The problem is that some relevant meta studies that I know  led to some controversy because of some inconsistency in results (in my opinion, mainly due to methodological issues, poor construct definition, lack of control variables, time lag effects, ...).

But let me be clear. Having the chance to work in several parts of the world and of studying some of he major problems we are facing (see IPPC reports) in the end, we are speaking about people, human beings and ours and others families common future.

Best Regards

Luis

Luis,

Thank you, and it is encouraging to hear people stress the importance of the people aspect and our future.  We need to "account" for human value.

Best wishes,

Robert

Sustainability, sustainable development and CSR not the same and it is not difficult to know why;  you will find my publications on these ideas interesting I think:

Introducing a Simple Qualitative Comparative Dichotomy Approach to State and Clarify Sustainable Development and Sustainability Related Concepts and Issues

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281244558_Introducing_a_Simple_Qualitative_Comparative_Dichotomy_Approach_to_State_and_Clarify_Sustainable_Development_and_Sustainability_Related_Concepts_and_Issues

Beyond traditional sustainable development: Stating specific and general sustainability theory and sustainability indices using ideal present-absent qualitative comparative conditions

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281276522_Beyond_traditional_sustainable_development_Stating_specific_and_general_sustainability_theory_and_sustainability_indices_using_ideal_present-absent_qualitative_comparative_conditions

Linking Sustainable Development Indicators by Means of Present/Absent Sustainability Theory and Indices: The Case of Agenda 21

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281276222_Linking_Sustainable_Development_Indicators_by_Means_of_PresentAbsent_Sustainability_Theory_and_Indices_The_Case_of_Agenda_21

Article Introducing a Simple Qualitative Comparative Dichotomy Appro...

Article Beyond traditional sustainable development: Stating specific...

Article Linking Sustainable Development Indicators by Means of Prese...

 Hi, Lucio.

Thanks for your inputs.

Best

Luis

 Hi, Lucio.

Thanks for your inputs.

Best

Luis

Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) are not exactly same. But there are common areas particularly with reference to social development. Sustainability also addresses environmental aspects and CSR may not cover environmental aspects as extensively. For example reduction of global warming can be a focus area for sustainability. On the other hand CSR activities typically focus on social aspects such as skills development in case of underprivileged children. A typical corporate house may proactively spend considerable amount for attaining zero carbon footprint. This activity will considered as contribution towards sustainability and not CSR. Funding for CSR activities should be directed towards external agencies working in social sector. There is a tendency to form an NGO organization working in social/non profit sector such as education by corporates and fund the same. This can be also considered as CSR but should be avoided.   

Dear Milind,

Thank you for sharing.

Best

Luis

Hi Luis ;

See my article for help.

Best regards.

Hi Azzedine,

Many thanks for your interesting article. It was appreciated.

Best

Luis

Dear Bart, thanks for sharing that information.  In that case what is or was sustainabilty then for ISO or the discussion group since it is neither CSR nor sustainable development? 

Hello Everyone,

The term Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) appeared before Sustainable Development and their levels of analysis are distinguished: the organizational first and second macroenvironmental. What happened it´s that some people use the term sustainability for organizations maintain longevity beyond competitive position (economic dimension), but through a responsible action with regard to the social and natural environments, at least.

The choice for acting on the base of the pyramid, I see how a market segmentation strategy with social impact, in line with responsible and sustainable performance.

I and some colleagues have a job where we discuss some of these concepts with the example of the Brazilian company Natura cosmetics.

Fabiano Sambiase Lombardi, M., Camargo Leal, C., & Basso, L. F. (2010). The activity of Natura from the perspective of sustainable development and of corporate social responsibility. Management Research: Journal of the Iberoamerican Academy of Management, 8(3), 165-182.

Thank you

Dear Marta,

Many thanks for your views (muito obrigado).

I consider  sustainable competitive advantage, is NOT the same as sustainable business. It's unfortunate that there is confusions between  "sustainable competitive advantage,"  and sustainability. Maybe we should change the phrase "sustainable competitive advantage" to "enduring competitive advantage.

Best

Luis

Dear Luis,

I agree that "sustainable competitive advantage is NOT the same as sustainable business"; but I have seen that for a business to have longevity, be durable, it must be sustainable in economic terms (of advantage or competitive parity) and in social and ecological terms, that is a sustainable business.

May be "enduring competitive advantage" is a good name!

I like the idea of integrating these issues and I have seen authors of strategy doing the same.

Thank you for the opportunity to clarify.

Best

Marta

Dear Bart, not just your working group at that time, everybody chose to base their programs on sustainable development and not on sustainability because there was then a theory of sustainable development and indicator, but not a theory of sustainability and indicators. And we know the concept of sustainable development allows to fit different development goals as sustainability or can be used even by opposing development groups as a development promotion tool..  We know now that sustainability is optimal development and sustainable development is not, so seeking an optimal goal should be better, but it is less politically feasible.

The way it is described in this working group document, they are describing sustainability as it if is sustainable development; and almost everybody did it and still does it.  Worsening environmental and social issues will prove once and for all in the future that sustainable development was the wrong path to follow. And then we will do what the bruntland commission really wanted to make social and environmental issues endogenous to any type of models we had, especially economic models to account for those externalities directly, we have not done it yet

Dear Bart, not just your working group at that time, everybody chose to base their programs on sustainable development and not on sustainability because there was then a theory of sustainable development and indicator, but not a theory of sustainability and indicators. And we know the concept of sustainable development allows to fit different development goals as sustainability or can be used even by opposing development groups as a development promotion tool..  We know now that sustainability is optimal development and sustainable development is not, so seeking an optimal goal should be better, but it is less politically feasible.

The way it is described in this working group document, they are describing sustainability as it if is sustainable development; and almost everybody did it and still does it.  Worsening environmental and social issues will prove once and for all in the future that sustainable development was the wrong path to follow. And then we will do what the Bruntland commission really wanted to make social and environmental issues endogenous to any type of models we had, especially economic models to account for those externalities directly, we have not done it yet

Dear Martha, before our common future was published 1987 by the Bruntland commission I never heard of CSR and the concept of sustainable development started then, was CSR around before 1987?. I

Dear Lucio and Marta,

I suggest the following article to get an overview of CSR definitions (back from 1980):

Dahlsrud, A. (2008). How corporate social responsibility is defined:

An analysis of 37 definitions. Corporate Social Responsibility

and Environmental Management, 15(1), 1–13.

Best to all.

Luis

Dear Lucio and Marta,

I suggest the following article to get an overview of CSR definitions (back from 1980):

Dahlsrud, A. (2008). How corporate social responsibility is defined:

An analysis of 37 definitions. Corporate Social Responsibility

and Environmental Management, 15(1), 1–13.

Best to all.

Luis

Dear Luis, I will take a look at this, thank you.  But my point is not about the current best definition of CSR, my point is  why the bustiness community and development organization governmentts and NGO decided to either go the way of sustainable development or CSR instead of sustainability as the goal from the beginning after taking the bruntland commissions concerns about traditional economic development at heart?. Focus was put then on developing theories of sustainable development or CSR and indices frameworks instead of focusing on developing an agreeable defeinition of sustainabilities and indices...By 1987 I was already sharing ideas on sustainabilities and indices and sharing them in internet discussion at world bank and FAO when possible, but there was not much true interest in true sustainabililty theory at that time.  As the social issues and environmental issues that previosly were assumed minimal or no existen and set aside as externalities worsen more and more space for true sustaibility thinking is being created.  Have a nice day Luis.

Dear Lucio,

I can share with you my views on the issue: Sustainable Development is a concept at global and intergovernmental level; Social Responsibility is at organizational level and frames its contributions for sustainability.

Although there is no consensus concerning the concept of CSR and Sustainability most definitions take into consideration economic, social and environmental dimensions.  With a pragmatic perspective, I am aligned with authors that consider expressions like CSR, SD and Sustainability   as ‘‘umbrella constructs’: sustainable progress must cover all three dimensions that affect people’s life chances (social, economic and environmental).

Best

Luis 

Is CSR the same as Sustainability?

[taken from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/csr-same-sustainability-dr-michael-hopkins?trk=mp-reader-card]

The history of CSR goes back a long way, while Sustainability is relatively recent. My own definition of CSR is, briefly, treating key stakeholders responsibly (full definition on www.mhcinternational.com...since taken up by ISO26000, EU, WBSCD..no I don't claim to have influenced these simply I was there before these august institutions got around to CSR) which I concocted in the mid 1990s in my book 'The Planetary Bargain' influenced by Archie Carroll, Donna Wood, Ed Freeman to name but a few of the early pioneers.

I have struggled with Sustainability for many years and have never really warmed to the term ever since Simona Zadek wrote that corporate sustainability was hardly going to be ignored by corporations whatever it meant!. Then, following Brundtland’s famous report on ‘Caring for the Future’ and seeing Sustainability as caring for the future without harming the present, I saw that sustainability could reach out to other social concepts such as basic needs. Immediately after that report, the Sustainability undoubtedly grew out of the environmental movement but was then greatly helped by John Elkington's triple bottom line that extended Sustainability into multi-stakeholder initiatives. Well so much for a potted history..my forthcoming CSR Text Book with Greenleaf in summer 2015 treats the issues in more depth.

So I saw CSR as the umbrella concept for companies and institutions to behave responsibly i.e. a process while seeing Sustainability as the goal. More recently while working on GRI G4 guidelines my views changed a little as GRI used the concepts of multi-stakeholder and materiality ('key' stakeholders). I started to think that CSR and Sustainability might well be synonyms. But then my 'feelings' took over and I felt that too much 'Sustainability' was confusing the space and that companies especially were happy to focus on sustainable environments rather than looking at all key stakeholders. It is rare indeed for sustainability to cover things like corporate governance, executive pay, corruption, human rights etc.and, of course, to emphasise the business case which must be the Occam's razor for CSR policy. As an aside I continue to be astonished that GRI does not mention CSR in its G4 guidelines – I have taken that up with them but so far a deafening silence!

Returning to CSR, we can also see the concept being used in a uni-stakeholder manner - such as India's emphasis (more or less) on CSR projects and as I saw yesterday the UN's population agency UNFPA announcing its proud CSR programme to work with adolescent girls. Now nothing wrong with either of these approaches but they are, simply, partial stakeholder not multi-stakeholder approaches.

So right now I see CSR as the dominant concept and Sustainability weakening a little due to its over-emphasis on environmental issues. Proof? Well a poor one is looking at Google references to CSR (172million) and Sustainability (118million) as of Feb 2015...when I have done that before a few years back Sustainability had more references than CSR.

A final word that has also oft troubled me. When a company launches a new product or service it is very careful how it defines its product. Intel for instance used to be all over the place with its use of CSR, CR, SR, Sustainability, Citizenship, Ethical behaviour etc etc. Yet when it launches a new chip it must be incredibly precise so as not to create errors. Rarely do we see company reports defining what they mean by the terms they use. Boring possibly? I don’t know, I just wish they would define their terms!

Good day Luis.  In my website http://www.truesustainability.com/ there is a representation of true sustainability and tis different component sustainability positions, which I have shared since the 1990s. When I first heard about CSR through green leaf publishing my thoughts were it was an application of sustainability theory to make the business model either socially friendly or environemtally friendly or both. So any business model who focuses on addressing social and/or environmental externalities is in my view would be a CSR model.  But they are based on CSR theory, not sustainability theory with can lead to problems such as linking the social, economic, environental components within models and between models.  That is why they seem to be either company specific or sector specif ic of spacially specific as you said... Similar limitations seem to apply to sustainable development programs/plans affecting comparability and replicability...Sustainability moves or should move within and between systems/sectors/countries subsistems/subsectors/provinces...and so on creating a way for ongoing monitoring and action. Have a nice day.

Michael hanks for your thoughts, it seems we have been wondering similar things about sustainability since about the same time the 1990s, but from my view sustainability was left out as it creates less politically feasible models, especially business models when it was thought that embrasing sustainability would create less competivie enviroments in thoughts similar to justify and slow the incorporation of environmental issues/consideration nto economic models... But now there evidence that there is a business case in addressing social and environental issues head on  and the cases are being sold with an easier to sell package sustainable development or CSR.  Ofcourse interest will be in making those concepts more available in publications and discussions.  What I see as relevant is that despite being ignored for all this time the concept of sustainability still around perhaps smiling at us with his resilent heart.  As you can see in my website http://www.truesustainability.com/  everything there is my personal contribution to the development of sustainability theory and indices to ensure the efford keeps going.  Have a nice day.

Dear Michael and Lucio,

Many thanks for your insights.

Michael, I also very much enjoyed your works on CSR Business case and CSR and TQM nexus.

Best

Luis 

In my opinion, the sustainability concept is broader and consist of relations between business and society within it, and it is not the idea that some relationships are superior to others. There is a missing link between the microeconomic view (CSR) and macroeconomic one (sustainability). How do you think Luis Fonseca ?

Dear Adam and Madhu, in my humble opinion, apparently the bruntdland commission in 1987/Our Common Future saw the need to fix the traditional market model to shift towards social and environmentally friendliness, but they could not see that doing that requires a paradigm shift and when you do that you create paradigm shifts knowledge gaps as now traditional microeconomic and traditional macroeconomic thinking no longer works....

The time from 1987 to 2012 Rio plus 20 was a waste of time in terms of developing the new knowledge needed to succeed in the new paradigm that comes when you fix Adam Smith model.....

In 2012 we moved towards green markets, green growth, and green economies without developing green microeconomics/the theory of environmentally friendly firm and consumer; and green macroeconomics/the theory of the environmentally friendly economy....

UN based Sustainable development programs, environmental solutions including global warming or links of climate change and the macroeconomy or CSR have been implemented or thought under paradigm shift knowledge gaps....The market structure of all of those approaches is different than that of the perfect traditional market, but you can not see that when you are thinking inside the box.....

You may find these papers full of food for thoughts aimed at helping in the closing of those paradigm shift knowledge gaps:

Beyond traditional sustainable development: Stating specific and general sustainability theory and sustainability indices using ideal present-absent qualitative comparative conditions

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281276522_Beyond_traditional_sustainable_development_Stating_specific_and_general_sustainability_theory_and_sustainability_indices_using_ideal_present-absent_qualitative_comparative_conditions

Beyond Green Market Thinking: What would be the Structure of the Perfect Sustainability Market?

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303014272_Beyond_Green_Market_Thinking_What_would_be_the_Structure_of_the_Perfect_Sustainability_Market

From Traditional Markets to Green Markets: A Look at Markets Under Perfect Green Market Competition

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330701187_From_Traditional_Markets_to_Green_Markets_A_Look_at_Markets_Under_Perfect_Green_Market_Competition

The following paper is being peer reviewed right now:

From Traditional Markets to Sustainability Markets: A Look at Markets Under Perfect Sustainability Market Competition

See project

https://www.researchgate.net/project/From-Traditional-Markets-to-Sustainability-Markets-A-Look-at-Markets-Under-Perfect-Sustainability-Market-Competition

CSR and sustainability are similar concepts, although not the same.

CSR includes activities firms undertake in order to be economically, socially and environmentally responsible. By engaging in CSR activities, firms contribute to sustainability. Sustainability is a broader concept. It may refer to a firm, a community, a country or the whole planet and it encompasses all levels of life, namely, economic, psychological, social, environmental. Taking CSR more broadly, that is, not confining it to private firms only but include all types of organizations (state owned enterprises, public administrations, cooperatives, etc, then the general concept of Social Responsibility may converge to the concept of Sustainability.

Good day Athanasios, keep in mind, true sustainability or general sustainability requires social, environmental and economic responsibility at the same time. ...

Read my previous comment carefully and asked yourself, is CSR designed to fix the model to go beyond business as usual or just to patch business as usual?....

The same question applies to any sustainable development program a la dwarf green market. Are they aimed at fixing traditional development thinking or just to patch it?......

The bruntdland commission in 1987 call for fixing, not patching, and the fixing requires externality cost internalization in the pricing mechanism of traditional markets, ...then you are beyond business as usual....

Have a nice day Anhanasios!

Dear Lucio, thank you for your message. Yes, as I wrote sustainability encompasses all levels of social responsibility. You are right, internalization of costs is something very important and it is a major pillar of Social Responsibility of all organizations, private and public. The price mechanism is not perfect (see Coase, 1937 The Nature of the Firm). CSR definately helps toward internalization of externalities. I am not so sure what "going beyond the business as usual" really means. What are the boundaries between the concept of "fixing" vs "patching"? Changes usually come incrementally, so patching may ultimetly lead to fixing.

Best Regards.

Dear Athanasios. good day:

a) true sustainability or general sustainability is more than just social responsibility or just environmental responsibility or just economic sustainability;

b) Fixing means dealing with the root cause,(eliminate price distortion), not dealing with consequences as externality management approaches do....when you focus on the consequences, the root cause is still active....If the benefits from the root cause being active are greater than the cost of dealing with the consequences, no real incentive/pressure to change or modify behavior exists...

c) Fixing may be more expensive than patching.....but the cost may stop there; patching maybe cheaper, but then you may have to repatch again and again, and in the end it may still need fixing....adding to a higher cost than fixing it in the first place.

d) if you know the end goal, then you can plan for incremental change, if you have no goals or you are under paradigm shift knowledge gap it is difficult if not impossible to see how to plan for incremental change...

I am just sharing food for thoughts Athanasios, i am not attempting to impose ideas or look down other people ideas.

You may find this paper interesting:

Complex and Man-made Markets: Are We Currently Approaching Sustainability in a Backward and More Chaotic Way in Terms of Economic Thinking?

Article Complex and Man-made Markets: Are We Currently Approaching S...

Have a nice day

To me CSR and Sustainability are two different terms, though some what related, while CSR as the name implies is the social responsibility an organization or firm owes and or renders to the society, mostly in its area of operation (which could involve economic, social, environmental etc activity) depending on the compelling needs of society and or the availability of funds/corporate policy. Sustainability is the process of ensuring the success and sustenance of a program or project for as long as possible. Sustainability is a major factor that is considered when designing a CSR project or program.

Dear Wokoma, good day.

Ask yourself the questions....,

if Adam Smith's model were socially responsible, would there have been a need for socially friendly CSR?....

If Adam Smith's would have giving us the theory of the perfect sustainability market in 1776 instead of the theory of the perfect traditional market, would there be a need for socially friendly CSR?.

The answer can be used to point out the link between CSR and business as usual and its distance from true sustainability.

Dear Lucio Murioz,

Thank you for your reaction to my response on Sustainability and CSR.

My line of reasoning is purely environmental - from Sustainable development in environmental studies and my general knowledge of CSR. I am not an economist and couldn't have reasoned from that line of thought. However, your comment has encouraged me to dig a little deeper in that direction and for this i am truly grateful.

Dear Wokoma, feel free to exchange ideas with me anytime, if I think I can at least share some food for thoughts I will share them, respectfully.

Luis Fonseca,

From my opinion, CSR & Sustainability are different things. In my home country, most of the organisation just focus on profit distribution to the poor people. But, they don't think on the development of other issues i.e. environment, social, etc. Without the integration of economic, social & environment development, no country can achieve sustainable development. For example, if we just focus on economic development, GDP gets higher with destroying the environment or population’s rights. So, I think these two things are related but different things.

Corporate Social Responsibility represents a broad term that captures the socially-beneficial initiatives that a Corporation (the "C" within CSR) can engage in. Sustainability, or acting in a socially responsible way within the context of the environment, is one manifestation of CSR.

My co-authors and I recently wrote that CSR has become a "necessary component of both corporate reputation and strategy development" and demonstrated how self-reporting of CSR activities positively affect a firm's reputation and ultimately profits.

Article Self-Reporting CSR Activities: When Your Company Harms, Do Y...

Most research on CSR has shown that it is less valuable than a reputation for ability (i.e. creating high quality products), but my colleagues and I recently found that CSR (vs ability) can actually be more important than ability for informing expectations and evaluations of experiences.

Article Brand associations: the value of ability versus social respo...

CSR is the process, Sustainability the goal www.csrfi.com

I agree that CSR and Sustainability are completely two different terms

CSR and sustainability are similr, however, sustainability dominates CSR.

Corporate social responsibility and sustainability are both about enabling companies to incorporate creation of social and environmental, as well as economic, value into core strategy and operations. This improves management of business risks and opportunities whilst enhancing long-term social and environmental sustainability.