Sustainable Business

Book excerpt: The developments in our environment and society has made it clear that the way we run our businesses and govern our nations is not sustainable in the long run. This is also why more and more companies and organizations are pursuing sustainable business through various Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities. However, many companies experience that although they facilitate a CSR strategy on corporate level, CSR is often not embedded in their business and/or integrated across their functions. If companies are to achieve the full business potential and performance impact of CSR, sustainability has to be operationalized, targeted and measured across the value chain through empowered employees and in alignment with the business strategy of the company. Though state-of-the-art CSR research, theories and models, the theoretical platform for sustainable business and CSR is presented in this book. However, CSR is carried out in practice, and not just in theory. This is why each chapter is supplemented with practical case examples explaining the way in which different companies and their managers have integrated sustainable business in their strategy and across the organizations’ different functions. As is evident both in theory and practice, the success of CSR integration is highly affected by industrial context, as the unique characteristics of the industry have an impact on the key sustainability challenges and business opportunities of the specific company and industry. In support of this evidence, the book also reveals how CSR can be implemented across private and public organizations as well as small & medium sized entities (SMEs).