Since the 1987 Brundtland Report that put sustainability on the business map, the Rio Conference in 1992 and its famous declaration, and the concept of a “triple bottom line” put forth by John Elkington in 1994, issues related to sustainability have expanded as a central topic in corporate boardrooms and business strategy. Along the way in the evolution of sustainability ideas and concepts, they have morphed into the broader area of corporate responsibility (numerous terms are used to describe this, such as corporate citizenship, corporate social responsibility, and simply social responsibility).
As an important and rapidly evolving area, there is a wild-west quality to defining, executing, and measuring sustainability and CSR initiatives. With sustainability, concrete issues commonly identified are reduction of energy use, carbon-generation, waste, etc. With CSR some norms have gained general acceptance, sustainability issues for sure have, as well as child-labor issues and good EHS practices. But with CSR especially, this is still a very fluid area. The CSR (or SR) ISO activities (ISO 26000) might help, but it will be many years for this to flesh out. Read More