Sustainability: discussion
October 17, 2008
These days it seems that Corporate Social Responsibility, or CSR, is being supplanted by the notion of sustainability. But what does that word really mean, and is there a real difference between the two anyway?
1. What sustainability means to me
Sustainability isn’t just about environmental and climate change issues, although it includes those concerns. But it’s also, equally, about social and economic considerations that would include the following:
Human rights – those rights that have been agreed to be inherent to human well-being eg freedom of speech, right to education, etc: “The concept of human rights acknowledges that every single human being is entitled to enjoy his or her (rights) without distinction as to race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status” (Practical Guide to the UN Global Compact, 2008)
Labour standards
Business ethics and anti-corruption
Philanthropy and community engagement
For companies, the advancement of key business priorities and profitability
2. Not simply the responsibility of corporates
Onus on change isn’t put on the corporate headquarters alone, but a sustainability strategy will align itself with all (or most) stakeholders, and will include the value chain of suppliers. In addition, stakeholders will include not just shareholders, but will take into consideration customers and the wider community, such as national and local governments and even civil society groups such as relevant NGOs, international and inter-governmental organizations such as the UN and EU. Good dialogue with these disparate groups should promote a sense of ownership for a sustainability type ‘challenge’ from all parts of society, and not leave these challenges to be burdened on businesses shoulders alone.
Furthermore, it may be the corporation that ends up leading this dialogue but it may bring with it positive external consequences for the rest of society. Therefore, buy-in to the sustainability can’t simply be marginalised to a single department or to the marketing team. And I say that as a communications professional!
3. Long-term view
Sustainability is about taking long-term and often radical measures to actively deal with far-reaching issues. It’s not a short or mid-term measure. Could this be what separates CSR from Sustainability?
Click here for an interesting article at the FT on philanthropy/CR, written by Richard Tomkins and published January 2009
I agree with you that sustainability and CSR are often considered to be the same, even if they are not. I am not a specialist on CSR, I’m only a student, but I consider that also CSR policies should be created on long term. Also, I think that CSR is only way to achieve a sustainability strategy, but also governments, important NGOs and, in the end, the individuals, have their part in creating and implementing a sustainability strategy
Thanks for your comment Silvia. I’d be interested to hear others’ definition of CSR as opposed to sustainability…
Interesting, Vanessa. I hear a similar refrain – “CSR is dead; long live Sustainability” – from practitioners here in Asia.
CSR is the process, or lifestyle, required to achieve sustainability. It is as simple as that. CSR is not something you snap your fingers and say, ‘done.’ It is a strategic approach to conduct that aims to manage the impact of the conduct on the world around it.
Thus, there can be no such question as “is this CSR or is it Sustainability?” CSR is the path; Sustainability, the goal. One can *do* neither CSR nor Sustainability: one *can* pursue a CSR strategy towards a Sustainability goal.
I do agree with you on the unfortunate conflation of the process with a particular social group, the Corporates.
Why not further enhance Wayne Visser’s modified definition of “CSR?” He opts for “Corporate Sustainability and Responsibility.”
Why not “Civic Sustainability and Responsibility?” That opens up the action groups to everyone from Boy Scout Troops to churches to mom-and-pop enterprises to multi-national corporations. (Alernatively, Collaborative / Collective / Cooperative / Creative: I do love the internet!)
In the end, the objective is to have a package that intuitively appeals to all organizations, big and small; public and private; profit and volunteer. Given their disparate world views, we are talking about a gargantuan challenge.
hi, i tend to work with the following differentiator:
csr is about taking responsibility for what we do as a business ie our direct impacts on all stakeholders. Sustainability is about collaborating with others outside the business to impact broader world social and envoronmental issues.
csr is more about what we do as a business within our immediate operating localities.
Sustainability is more about what our business does in the world.
In my view, csr is a prerequisite for sustainability.
For example:
Business X may implement a supply chain monitoring policy to ensure suppliers behave ethically. That is CSR.
Business X may join with governments, NGOs and community coalitions to support legislation to enforce elimination of child labor in Asian factories. This is sustainability.
elaine
http://www.csr-reporting.blogspot.com
Elaine – your definition makes good sense and is very useful. The number of executives I’ve heard protest at the phrase ‘corporate responsibility’ ! – but I can also see why and how, in the light of this differentiator, some far-sighted executives are now looking beyond CSR towards sustainability.
- Alex’s comment resonates: ‘In the end, the objective is to have a package that intuitively appeals to all organizations, big and small; public and private; profit and volunteer’ – Not only that but I have to keep reminding myself that when working with clients, especially corporate/business clients overseas, there’s not much use in getting hung up within rigid titles and definitions – a certain flexibility and lateral thinking is useful for communicating these issues. Thanks for your excellent feedback.
It seems to me that these terms are largely synonymous and that CSR/ CR/ CSL/ CC etc. refers to what business does in the name of sustainability. To me, sustainability refers to what all sectors are working to achieve and is thus an umbrella term if you will. However, in academic and practitioner literature, sustainability tends to refer more to environmental (and related policy, systems and process) concerns, whereas CSR (etc.) refers to more social or more general concerns.
I understand that semantics are important and that terms move in and out of fashion, in particular with business. I do hope that as experts, we can spend less and less time on getting the definitions just right, and more and more time on moving a CSR/ CR/ CSL/ CC/ CA/ SD/ sustainability agenda forward.