How much CSR is enough?

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) ha been a business buzz word for a while now. The questions raised in a Development Crossing piece published today are good ones (even if the article itself is a little lightweight).

What exactly is CSR?
How much CSR is optimal?

This quote was what inspired me to post on this topic today.

Former Shell director Sir Geoffrey Chandler once said of “corporate social responsibility”: “I know of no phrase which has done more damage to constructive thought or caused greater confusion. It has encouraged the belief that a company’s responsibility to society lies in voluntary philanthropic add-ons, rather than the application of principle to all its activities.”

This second quote I need to remember as it justifies nicely the existence of this blog.

Three words capture the fundamental understandings of our age: “globalization” and “global warming”. Both concepts assume that actions have consequences far away in space and time from the actors. CSR requires corporations to grapple openly with the nature and context of their actions and effects.

This raises a number of interesting topics for discussion.

How much corporate social responsibility (CSR) is enough? How much CSR reporting is enough? [Development Crossing]

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