For companies that see CSR as an opportunity to strengthen the business, the big challenge is execution. Smart partnering can provide a practical way forward.

There is a lot more to measuring a company's total environmental impact than merely examining internal processes. It requires a product life-cycle approach to sustainability-from growing raw materials and production, to distribution, consumer use and product disposal.

The increasing interdependence between business and society presents an opportunity for companies to develop “social advantage” by aligning the business and social dimensions of their strategies to create more sustainable, valued, and expansive business models. Creating social advantage goes beyond financial metrics to renewing depletable resources and goodwill, meeting and capitalizing on consumers’ ecological needs, and developing new markets around alternative and renewable resources. This Perspective cites three examples of companies that have succeeded in building social advantage.

Social pressure plays a major role in determining corporate strategy and performance according to an award-winning paper coauthored by Professor David Baron. The researchers find that social pressure and social performance reinforce each other, greater social pressure is associated with lower financial performance, and financial and social performance are largely unrelated.

Ceres has released the 21st Century Corporation: The Ceres Roadmap to Sustainability as a vision and practical roadmap for integrating sustainability into the DNA of business—from the boardroom to the copy room. It analyzes the drivers, risks and opportunities involved in making the shift to sustainability, and details strategies and results from companies who are taking on these challenges. This Roadmap is designed to provide a comprehensive platform for sustainable business strategy and for accelerating best practices and performance.

What is in The Ceres Roadmap?
* The Roadmap sets out 20 expectations for sustainability that companies should start implementing now to be considered sustainable going forward. It is raising the bar for leadership.

* These expectations are laid out in four broad areas that are key for corporate sustainability: governance, stakeholder engagement, disclosure, and performance. All of the expectations presented in the Roadmap need to be addressed for a company to achieve a comprehensive and coherent sustainable business strategy.

* The full report has more than 200 company best practice examples across 20 sectors. Many companies have started this journey — from heavy industry to consumer products — and the Roadmap includes a full range of examples to demonstrate what is possible now and where companies need to go in the future.

* The report features more than 250 resources and tools from a wide range of global experts, organizations and thought leaders.

Social pressure plays a major role in determining corporate strategy and performance. Researchers find that social pressure and social performance reinforce each other, greater social pressure is associated with lower financial performance, and financial and social performance are largely unrelated.

Peter Drucker's immense contribution to the thinking and practice of management extends to social responsibility in business. This work goes back over 60 years but remains relevant today -- notwithstanding the impacts of globalisation and the greater interconnectedness of business and society, says INSEAD Professor Craig Smith.

From pink ribbons to Product Red, cause marketing adroitly serves two masters, earning profits for corporations while raising funds for charities. Yet the short-term benefits of cause marketing—also known as consumption philanthropy—belie its long-term costs. These hidden costs include individualizing solutions to collective problems; replacing virtuous action with mindless buying; and hiding how markets create many social problems in the first place. Consumption philanthropy is therefore unsuited to create real social change.

The effective debunking of the notion of a triple bottom line is 6½ years old now, and it is still making people angry.

An Environmental Defense Fund program gives MBA students a crash course in energy efficiency. Then the MBAs crunch the numbers to show the payoff to a company's bottom line.

For companies to succeed during these times of change, they'll need to define and embrace a rigorous framework for sustainability - something that goes beyond well-intended but overarching statements and builds a foundation that helps a firm achieve its sustainability and business goals.

Sophisticated tools for carbon-emissions accounting are coming to market. But are U.S. companies ready for them?

For your green message to be heard and translated into sales, you have to make your message relevant not only to the fate of the planet but also to the fate of the people living on it. The question is, How?

Companies want to ensure the greatest environmental and economic return on each dollar (and hour) spent on sustainability. So which individuals or groups can you influence to support your sustainability efforts? Which individuals or groups pose the greatest business risk with respect to your environmental performance? Where do you start?

Companies should start by evaluating their stakeholders and then taking some counter-intuitive actions: Initiating partnerships with some groups they often contest, enlisting the support of those who pose a high business risk, and creating networks to enable others to improve their stewardship. Collectively, this strategy will improve your company's environmental performance.

Emerging alternatives to the shareholder-centric model could help companies avoid ethical mishaps and contribute more to the world at large.

An updated version of the 2007 report The Six Sins of Greenwashing has just been released. And like its predecessor, this version offers sensational findings: of 2,219 products making environmental claims that researchers found in North American retailers, "over 98 percent" committed one of several "sins." The 2007 report identified six such sins. This year's edition adds a seventh.

The climate debate has moved beyond the question of whether climate change is happening. The issue is no longer whether there should be limitations on carbon emissions, but when and how these limitations should be imposed. Do you know how much carbon dioxide your company emits to make its products or provide its services? In this article the authors spell out a practical way for companies to respond to all these pressing questions.

Unscientific assumptions in economic theory are undermining efforts to solve environmental problems.

Editor's Note: you may or may not agree with this short article, but it is thought provoking and thus I think worth reading (including the comments)...

Everyone agrees it is wrong to buy things made with sweatshop labor. Yet many of us are willing to justify our decision when a product—a pair of jeans, for example—is something we really want. HBS doctoral student Neeru Paharia and Professor Rohit Deshpandé study the dark side of buying behavior. Their good news: We can influence change for the better.

No company today can avoid the issue of sustainability. How to approach this challenge remains an open question, however, as it can seem to be much more about what not to do than about out-performing the competition. In reality, leading companies are already turning sustainability to their advantage by applying the three building blocks of high performance.

In this report, we explain how sustainability has become a critical issue on the corporate agenda, why companies need to rethink the issue of value and how some leaders are reshaping their strategies, capabilities and cultures to their advantage—and setting the tone for other businesses to emulate. Our goal is to arm executives with a new pair of lenses with which to view the implications of sustainability for business.

Procurement lies at the heart of a successful green strategy.

Companies concerned about their social and environmental impacts have a new tool for measuring and monitoring their activities.

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) has released its new Measuring Impact Framework, a guide for how to look at and assess impacts. The group worked its framework into an Excel-based guide, giving companies an outline for identifying, measuring and monitoring impacts.

The Framework includes four broad steps: Set boundaries, measure direct and indirect impacts, assess contributions to development and prioritize responses.

The guide takes users through each step in detail, helping them think about all parts of society they impact, make plans, provide rationalizations for actions and consider stakeholder opinions.

The WBCSD developed the Framework over the past two years with the help of more then 25 companies. It was designed for any company in any industry to use at any stage in their business operations.

The Framework includes an analysis of why companies should measure and understand how they impact societies and how they can benefit from that knowledge. Anticipating societal changes, finding new business opportunities, improving relationships with communities and managing risks are just some of the benefits outlined by the WBCSD. [Hat Tip to GreenBuzz.com]

Getting your business labeled green though a certification program has many benefits, but as companies are discovering, the simple act of choosing which program opens up a world of complications.

Mix sustainable development, corporate social responsibility, stakeholder theory and accountability, and you have the four pillars of corporate sustainability, an evolving concept that managers are adopting as an alternative to the traditional growth and profit-maximization model.

Ten contributors ask whether companies can have the same code of ethics wherever they operate.
- Alan Strudler
- Tim Ambler
- Marianne M Jennings
- Chris Marsden
- Daryl Koehn
- Knut J Ims
- Michael Hoffman and Robert E McNulty
- Ulrich Thielemann and Thorsten Busch