Csr

Responsible business – also often referred to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) – is about business behavior that enhances the positive impacts of business for the economy, environment and society, whilst minimizing negative impacts. At a general level, the idea of sustainable development – understood as an integrated approach to pursuit of economic development, environmental protection and social justice – is a helpful touchstone for understanding ‘responsible business'. However, the substantive content of sustainable development is not uniform around the world, and how trade-offs (e.g. between economic growth and environmental protection, or poverty reduction and conservation) are managed, or who has a say in deciding what the overall outcomes of ‘responsible business' should be, are highly context-dependant.

The CSR debate to date has largely focused on big companies. But nothing inherently limits its applicability to large enterprises. On the contrary, CSR ought to speak to the widest possible range of enterprises – from cooperatives, to partnerships, to limited liability companies of various kinds, or even to those enterprises that reinvest their profits for social purpose or that operate in the informal sector. Currently, it often fails to do so, for a variety of reasons. Principally, these relate to a failure to adequately take account of the specific challenges of smaller enterprise size and, secondly, to the challenge of ensuring