17 - Corporate sustainability as an indicator for more humanism in business? A view beyond the usual hype in Europe

Summary

The terms “corporate social responsibility” and “corporate sustainability” are used (often interchangeably) to describe the situation when companies take on a wider array of social and environmental issues (directly or indirectly) associated with their activities and take actions to mitigate those issues. A so-called business case for sustainability exists if these actions also translate into improved corporate financial performance.

Companies in an ideal humanistic business environment would proactively decide in favor of actions that put society's needs first. In any case, a sound business case for corporate sustainability is an important foundation for the necessary attitudinal change in this regard – and a simple fact of making smart investments. Humanism can be interpreted as a more far-reaching version of corporate sustainability, one that most hard-nosed and myopic managers would most likely disregard as philanthropy.

Sustainability in today's business environment has become increasingly prominent over the years, most recently in the context of climate change: businesses, policy-makers, and NGOs are attempting to surpass each other through – more or less – well-designed initiatives. And the media are happy to feed the heightened societal awareness.

However, how much of this is hype and opportunism? How significant is stakeholder interest in corporate sustainability, as a first step towards achieving humanism in business? To what extent do they reward corporate leaders and penalize laggards?

We hope to provide solid answers on the following pages, and will base them on empirical evidence collected at the International Institute for Management Development.