Harvard Business Review on Greening Your Business Profitably

Strategy & Society

The Link Between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility

by Michael E. Porter and Mark R. Kramer

GOVERNMENTS, ACTIVISTS, AND THE media have become adept at holding companies to account for the social consequences of their activities. Myriad organizations rank companies on the performance of their corporate social responsibility (CSR), and, despite sometimes questionable methodologies, these rankings attract considerable publicity. As a result, CSR has emerged as an inescapable priority for business leaders in every country.

Many companies have already done much to improve the social and environmental consequences of their activities, yet these efforts have not been nearly as productive as they could be—for ...