Sustainability-Driven Implementation of Corporate Social Responsibility: Application of the Integrative Sustainability Triangle

The opening line of the article, "Today, there is a broad consensus that the maximization of profit--as still advocated in microeconomic theory--can no longer be the exclusive goal of companies within the context of the overall economy."  One of these alternative goals that has risen over the past to decades, of course, is corporate sustainability. 

The article uses the term "Corporate Social Responsibility" (CSR)--a corporate contribution to sustainable development."

The early development of CSR and its link to sustainable development

• "The business of business is business" evolves into corporations being quasi-public institutions, and that stakeholders and corporations can both receive benefits from their contributions (referred to as "coalition"). 
• "Strategic Management" - Corporate Planning, Systems Theory, Organization Theory. Contrasted the shareholder value paradigm and focused on the corporation and short-term profits.
• "Human Relation Approach" - focused on 'soft factors' and strengthening relationships with stakeholders.  Corporations focused not solely on corporate goals but societal objectives. Business ethics rise. 
• This stemmed 'CSR Europe' in 1996 that fostered standards of legal requirements against social exclusion.  The author states that this is problematic because it applies general solutions to specific and complicated problems.
• United Nations introduce "Sustainable Development" in 1987 (development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the needs of the future), but there have been many who haven't fully understood the concept in its application.
• Eco-efficiency--integrating ecology and economy through efficient use of natural resources, introduced by UNCED to make business approaches better.

Corporate Sustainability- meeting the needs of the direct and indirect stakeholders (such as shareholders, employees, clients, pressure groups, communities, etc) without compromising the ability to meet the needs of future stakeholders as well. 

Implementation and horizontal integration

• The idea of corporate sustainability remains vague and is thus the source of many failed attempts to incorporate the term into daily business practices.  There is no real general approach, but there shouldn't be--sustainability is a complex concept that cannot be generally applied amongst vastly different industries. 
• Indicators such as kg of waste, sales volume, pounds of water, etc. used to measure "sustainability"
• eco-efficiency operator (implemented by Schaltegger and Sturm)- ratio of economic to ecological life-cycle burden. Leads to a win-win situation through efficient use of resources and corresponding benefits. 

The article proposes that there is a need for integrative concepts to provide simple and supportive yet comprehensive and conclusive augmentation of sustainability in corporations.  The answer?  The integrative sustainability triangle:

• Ecology, Economy and Society are the three main components.  (Hauntingly similar to the triple bottom line). 
• Solutions to today's issues must be inter-disciplinary. 
• connecting each component are indicators of "strong", "partial" and "weak" association to signify its relationships and triggers.
• the center, of course, is the "quadruple" in which all components are major influencers. 

What does this mean?

• Win-Win situations should be sought out and stakeholders should be the basis for the identification of issues. 
• Selection of focal topics--business size, regional activities--break down general approach in to more applicable factors.
• Anchoring and implementation must have support in highest forms of management.
• Efficient reporting and communication is the final indicator of a company's engagement with stakeholders and social responsibility. 

There's more here, but I didn't want to keep going into this one theory of resolving sustainability issues since we need like 30 more sources.  Note this as having more to go on though. 

Kleine, A. Hauff, Michael. (2009). Sustainability-Driven Implementation of Corporate Social Responsibility: Application of the Integrative Sustainability Triangle. Journal of Business Ethics, 3(85), 517-533.