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Chapter 13

Sustainability and Corporate

Social Responsibility

In This Chapter

A brief history of sustainability

Why the current approach is a mess

Some approaches to automation

S

ustainability, long a mantra of environmentalists, has now firmly entered

the vocabulary of the business world. Simply put, sustainability means

meeting the needs of the present without compromising the needs of the

future.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) means that companies see the chal-

lenges of sustainability and realize that as a company, they have the responsi-

bility to do something about that. CSR integrates social and environmental

concerns into business operations and relationships with shareholders. Some-

times people refer to this concept as “corporate citizenship” or “corporate

responsibility.” All of these terms carry the same basic meaning: corporations

must worry about more than bottom line profits. Now they must consider

their environmental and social impact. This is often called “triple bottom line

performance.”

What’s the triple bottom line? We’re not going to abandon that first most pop-

ular bottom line (you know, the one about moolah), but now it’s more complex.

The triple bottom lineincludes three essential elements:

Profits

Environmental impact

Social impact

How is your company going to practice CSR? That’s where corporate sustain-

ability comes in. It’s a management philosophy that meets present goals for

profits and growth without jeopardizing the company’s future — and that