Sustainable Corporate Responsibility - The Foundation of Successful Business in the New Millennium

Abstract

Economic, social and ecological catastrophes caused by business activities have repeatedly awakened many companies to reconsider their business concept. Companies were forced to rethink their responses to a wide range of stakeholder-demands. Although they are willing to take on “more” corporate responsibility and commit to sustainability, they have difficulties understanding these terms and how to apply them; there are too many conflicting definitions of these terms. Therefore, this paper provides a philosophically based introduction into the concepts of “corporate responsibility” and “sustainability”, as well as their application to daily business. It broadens readers’ minds towards a holistic understanding of which kind of responsibility they should be taking on and to whom. For the first time a model of Sustainable Corporate Responsibility (SCR) is presented in this paper mirroring all the different scopes of “Triple Corporate Responsibility”. Besides economic responsibility , a company also has to take on social and ecological responsibility to realise sustainable success. The model presented outlines all different approaches regarding sustainable corporate responsibility – be it exclusively economic and short-term oriented, or be it fully ethical, ecological and long-term oriented. Thus, it is not a normative model but one that expresses the possible ranges of SCR. Typical variations of company-profiles can be derived from the model. Comparisons between the states of corporate responsibility companies have achieved, can be easily drawn and communicated. Moreover, gaps between delusion and reality can be illustrated.