Corporate responsibility and sustainability is described as a company’s verifiable commitment to operating in an economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable manner that is transparent and increasingly satisfying to its stakeholders. Stakeholders include investors, customers, employees, business partners, local communities, the environment, and society. The emphasis is on transparent and verifiable stakeholders-driven business operation delivering optimized sustainability performance and associated competitive advantage.

In market economies, the primary focus of the company is to maximize shareholder value (e.g economic profit, share price, and dividends) bound by legal or regulatory obligations which address specific social and environmental issues. For this, companies pursue competitive strategies which rely upon and develop relationships between the corporation and its stakeholders. Since the early 1990s, corporate responsibility issues including social obligation of corporations have attained prominence in political and business debates. This is mainly in response to corporate scandals, but also due to the realization that development centered only on the economic growth paradigm is unsustainable.

There is a need for a more proactive role by states, companies, and communities in a development process aimed at balancing economic growth with environmental sustainability and social cohesion. CSR and corporate sustainability represent the way companies achieve enhanced ethical standards and a balance of economic, environmental, and social imperative addressing the concerns and expectations of stakeholders. Corporative governance reflects the way companies address legal responsibilities and therefore provide the foundation upon which CSR and corporate sustainability practices can be built to enhance responsible business operation.

A model – 4CR framework has been specifically designed to integrate the various strands of corporate responsibility and to support their integration in strategic management and mainstream business operation.4CR is dedicated to supporting learning and knowledge development in the field of corporate responsibility and strategic management. The 4CR Corporate Responsibility Map The 4CR multi-dimensional corporate responsibility perspective is aimed at establishing a coherent approach to addressing the various concepts of corporate responsibility and their integration with strategic management. The 4CR taxonomy described herein high-light four corporate responsibility areas;
• Corporate Competitiveness (CC)
• Corporate Governance (CG)
• Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
• Corporate Sustainability (CS) the center of the 4CR corporate Responsibility Map is stakeholder management, which provides the common link between corporate competitiveness and corporate responsibility and sustainability. The key issue in each of the four corporate responsibility stated above are as follow; Corporate competitiveness addressed by strategic management is a subject rarely discussed in the context of corporate responsibility. However, unless all strands of corporate responsibility are brought together under a common management framework, CSR and sustainability will remain peripheral activities and their impact is likely to remain well below the required levels to achieve the millennium and related goals.

Corporate Governance sets the legal framework to protect a company’s shareholder and stakeholder; the relative emphasis being depended on national approaches; CSR is aimed at extending the legal requirement promoting ethics, philanthropy, and social reporting to satisfy stakeholder concerns; Corporate sustainability focuses on long-term economic and social stakeholders’ expectations both by optimizing their sustainability performance and by participating in networks with governments, NGOs, and other stakeholders that can provide the capacity for the world’s sustainable development. Early roots of corporate social responsibility can be found in the actual business practices of successful companies and early theoretical views in the 1950s and 60s linked corporate social obligation to the power that business holds in society. Theoretical development is currently broadly subdivided into the ethical and accountability issues and the stakeholder approaches to strategic management. Key driving forces include investors and consumer demand and governmental and public pressure. Particularly important is the support for Socially Responsibility Investing (SRI). The corporate responsibility movement is now entering the main-streaming phase aided by standardization activity such as the GRI, the AA1000 series, and the ISO2600 guide.

CSR, corporate sustainability and corporate governance collectively are shaping the identity of the organization and are therefore increasingly integrated into the business strategy of successful corporations. Consequently, the field of responsible business strategy and practice is becoming one of the dynamics and challenging subject corporate leaders are facing today and possibly one of the most important ones for shaping the future of our world. The CSR and corporate sustainability movement are building an impressive momentum with support from the government and the investing community through Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) and associated corporate sustainability indexes.

There is no doubt businesses are doing far more than ever before to tackle the sustainability challenge by recognizing their social responsibilities, reducing their environmental impact, guarding against ethical compromises, creating governance transparency and becoming more accountable to their stakeholders. However, despite the progress achieved, CSR and corporate sustainability as business practiced approaches are at the infancy stage with relatively few real adopters and questionable impact. On the positive side, success stories from responsible companies, for example, the leading companies in SRI indexes confirm that outstanding financial performance is not incompatible with good sustainability performance.

The motivation of companies to address corporate responsibility and sustainability varies widely from instrumental approaches using responsible practices as a means of maximizing profit to intrinsic approaches committing the company to upholding its values and principles irrespective of the impact on financial performance. The key business drivers are; Strong brand and reputation; Employers of choice; Market position; Trust of the financial markets and increased shareholder value; New “green” products/services and new markets. It is becoming clear that leading companies of the future will have missions and strategies to constantly increase shareholder value but as an integral part of those strategies will also recognize and act upon the potential for addressing the interests of a broad range of stakeholders; building societal value and contributing to coalitions aimed at increasing the capacity for sustainable development.