Sustainable Management for Managers and Engineers

9Stop Camouflaging it in Green: Do Not Confuse Corporate Social Responsibility with Sustainable Management

Reviewing the literature, this chapter exposes the concepts of Ecological Economics, Sustainable Management and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in order to verify the conceptual confusion between the latter two. The debate has been marked by conceptual unclarity with both terms being frequently used as synonyms, even though clear distinctions can be highlighted. The first mismatch lands on the historical tradition surrounding both concepts, as CSR has mainly been concerned with the social dimension of organizational impact, marginalizing the environmental length. The second mismatch refers to the reasons why organizations opt for the adoption of CSR strategies or a Sustainable Management paradigm, having a more discretionary decision-making power in the adoption of CSR policies and practices, once historical tradition and empirical evidence shows that some organizations may only choose to be socially responsible in special fields, but may not be fully committed into a Sustainable Management paradigm. The third mismatch arises as these concepts imply a different commitment towards society because the complexity of each is distinct. CSR represents the microeconomic dimension of the macroeconomic concept of Sustainable Management, being a precondition for Sustainable Management. This work provides a useful input as it stresses that these two concepts may be considered ...