Sustainable Development, Corporate Sustainability, and Corporate Social

Responsibility: The Need for an Integrative Framework

Abstract

This paper contributes to the ongoing theoretical debate on sustainable development

(SD), corporate sustainability (CS), and corporate social responsibility (CSR) – with the

goal of proving that there is a missing link between these conceptual dimensions. Over

the past decade SD, CS, and CSR have been widely discussed in academic literature. As

key objectives, these concepts have guided government programs and policies

worldwide; moreover, many corporations are leading the surge toward sustainability.

Nonetheless, twenty years after the publication of “Our Common Future” (1987), the

call for a radical “shift” in our production and consumption patterns has become even

more urgent because actual progress toward achieving SD has been very limited.

This article explores the relationship between the bio-economic approach to

sustainability and the individual firm’s approach, focusing on how SD is being adapted

by managerial science. A corporate win-win strategy, which successfully leads to

efficiency and sustainability according to the managerial paradigm, does not necessarily

imply that the corporation is contributing to SD according to an ecosystem view. In

other words, a series of companies that may seem individually to be CS- or CSR-

oriented (according to the managerial theory), are not necessarily sustainable. In fact,

the theoretical approach to CS and CSR is ignoring concepts such as “limits”, “carrying

capacity”, unsubstitutability of forms of capitals. But bridging the theoretical distance

between SD and CS/CSR is key to overcome barriers to sustainable business models.