First, it is important to look closer at the definition and goals of sustainability and purpose. A lot of people have discussed how one “defines” sustainability and especially sustainable development and related concepts (Brundtland, 1987, Costanza, 1992, Pearce and Atkinson, 1993, Pezzey, 1990). Brundtland’s definition “…development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Brundtland, 1987) has become a standard definition, while others have tried to extend it over time. One good example for an extension of the definition is the definition of “Sustainable Development” by the British Government from 2013. They define it as “…encouraging economic growth while protecting the environment and improving our quality of life - all without affecting the ability of future generations to do the same.”

Corporate Sustainability & Corporate Social Responsibility

How can this be connected to corporate sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR)? According to Carroll, “there is an impressive history associated with the evolution of the concept and definition of corporate social responsibility” (Carroll, 1999). While CSR’s modern era begins in 1953 when Bowen mentioned for the first time that “employers have responsibilities to orient themselves towards expectations, goals and values of a society/community” (Bowen and Johnson, 1953). Since then, several definitions of CSR have been published. Dahlsrud has analyzed 37 of them in his article and concludes that they are to a large degree congruent. Furthermore he states that “the differences are not so much about how it is defined, as about how CSR is socially constructed in a specific context”(Dahlsrud, 2008)

Table 1: Corporate Sustainability issue examples

The issues that can be addressed by corporations are relevant to individuals, communities and organizations and consists of the three main areas economic, environmental and social. Their importance varies between different organisations, localities, communities and stakeholders.

With his phrase, “people, planet, profit”, John Elkington described in 1995 the triple bottom line approach and the goal of sustainability. While “profit” is the economic value created by organizations, “people” refers to fair and beneficial processes towards labor, community and region, and finally “planet” refers to sustainable environmental practices (Elkington, 1998). One can hypothesize that Corporate Sustainability can be described as a commitment to a dynamic concept that reflects the social discourse around moral and ethical responsibility of enterprises for environmental (planet) and social (people) consequences of their actions and activities beside the purpose of profit. In the best case, they generate a win/win situation (sustainable) or will lead to additional dialog and collaboration (viable, equitable or bearable).

Ethics & Values

Environmental and social responsibility, as described before, are strongly connected with ethics and moral. For example, DesJardins stated 1998 that “Environmental concerns need only be integrated within the moral minimum to become part of business' social responsibility.” (DesJardins, 1998). The same is true for social responsibility as for example published by Caroll. “Social responsibility can only become reality if more manager become moral instead of amoral or immoral” (Carroll, 1991). One can conclude that a strong and sense-full shared vision as well as ethical and moral values (a purpose) are the link between the proper leadership approach and implementation of corporate sustainability / corporate social responsibility. This was also recognized by Greenleaf by stating “standing for what is good and right even when it is not in the financial interest of the organization” (Greenleaf, 2002) and picked up by others, for example by Kempster et al. (Kempster et al., 2011).

Purpose & Shared Vision

Greenleaf’s statement connects perfectly to the Aristotelian philosophy of “telos” which was developed further by MacIntyre. He argues that a person (stakeholder) will gain purposefulness if moving towards his telos, meaning contribution to the humankind. Furthermore, he theorizes that a “good purpose” within leadership has significant relationships to virtues, goods, practices and telos. He additionally describes ‘external goods’ in opposite to ‘internal goods’ that can be achieved by acquiring human qualities (virtues). He argues that the greater the virtue is, the greater the practice excellence will be developed (MacIntyre, 1984, MacIntyre, 2013, MacIntyre and Macintyre, 1988). The “purpose” meant above is not the external goods that reflect the substantial commercial purpose (e.g. cash, assets, status, dividends,…) of the organization, which are usually defined in the business goals and vision/mission (Kempster et al., 2011). They are the “internal goods” or “extrinsic assets” that the community can benefit from and consume.

Summary

Summarizing the argumentation above, it can be concluded that purpose and a shared vision enable a corporation to establish corporate sustainability by generating internal goods. Ethics and values, beside a “vision”, are requirements that enable the leader to give his actions and behaviors sense and influence stakeholders towards the shared vision and purpose.

In Part 2 of this post, we’ll have a look on the different leadership approaches, which enables the leader to implement a shared vision and purpose.

Biblography:

BOWEN, H. R. & JOHNSON, F. E. 1953. Social responsibility of the businessman, Harper.

BRUNDTLAND, G. H. 1987. Our Common Future, World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED). Oxford University Press.

CARROLL, A. B. 1991. The pyramid of corporate social responsibility: toward the moral management of organizational stakeholders. Business horizons, 34, 39-48.

CARROLL, A. B. 1999. Corporate social responsibility evolution of a definitional construct. Business & society, 38, 268-295.

COSTANZA, R. 1992. Ecological economics: the science and management of sustainability, Columbia University Press.

DAHLSRUD, A. 2008. How corporate social responsibility is defined: an analysis of 37 definitions. Corporate social responsibility and environmental management, 15, 1-13.

DESJARDINS, J. 1998. Corporate environmental responsibility. Journal of Business Ethics, 17, 825-838.

ELKINGTON, J. 1998. Partnerships from cannibals with forks: The triple bottom line of 21st‐century business. Environmental Quality Management, 8, 37-51.

GREENLEAF, R. K. 2002. Servant leadership: A journey into the nature of legitimate power and greatness, Paulist Press.

KEMPSTER, S., JACKSON, B. & CONROY, M. 2011. Leadership as purpose: Exploring the role of purpose in leadership practice. Leadership, 7, 317-334.

MACINTYRE, A. 1984. After virtue, University of Notre Dame Press Notre Dame.

MACINTYRE, A. C. 2013. After virtue, A&C Black.

MACINTYRE, A. C. & MACINTYRE, A. C. 1988. Whose justice? Which rationality?, Duckworth London.

PEARCE, D. W. & ATKINSON, G. D. 1993. Capital theory and the measurement of sustainable development: an indicator of “weak” sustainability. Ecological economics, 8, 103-108.

PEZZEY, J. 1990. Economic analysis of sustainable growth and sustainable development. Environment Department working paper, 15.