The definition of Sustainable Development given by "Our Common Future", a report from the UN World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) that was published in 1987 is "Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."
In the versions of traditional dictionaries, sustainability is the condition or characteristic of what can be sustained - and to sustain means to keep balance, to resist, to keep up, to carry on, to maintain and so on, besides generating material resources for survival of (a country, social class, etc…), and to guarantee and supply the necessary means for the production and continuation of an activity.
In the way we see it, Sustainability applies to the whole, is the responsibility which each one of us, citizens, governors, business people, educators, spiritual guides, must have to keep inhabiting this planet as human specie. We call the part which refers to corporations as Corporate Responsibility.
Corporate Responsibility adds complexity to the administrative world, which begun totally focused in production, and, little by little, started including variables for decision making processes, such as knowledge systems and relationships with clients, valuation of internal publics and so on.
Michael Porter, in his brilliant structure of forces that act in the business world, has conceived five variables: supply power, buyer power, threat of substitutes, barriers to entry and rivalry. Today, what we see is a broader Porter model, in which the local communities, society, environment organizations and other non governmental institutions also act with its forces, making the companies reconsider them when elaborating their strategic planning.
That is what Corporate Sustainability is about, or in other words, how the companies relate to all their stakeholders, a task which becomes, each day, wider ranging and more complex.
Spoken in a different form, "Corporate Responsibility is the management model which brings the companies on the way to sustainability through not only recognizing the importance of its economic growth, but also of its impact in society and environment, and which understands the basis of all actions to reside in the human relations", which translates into a respectful relationship with all their stakeholders:
• Clients
• Suppliers
• Employees
• Communities
• Shareholders
• Environment
• Other publics of interest
And considering that respect means an attitude that brings someone to treat another being or object with great attention, profound deference, consideration and reverence, respect with all stakeholders mean, for example, the commitment with:
• Eco efficient products and processes
• Valuation of human resources inside and out of the company
• Ethics and transparency
• Corporate Governance
And we may finally say that Corporate Responsibility has:
Dimensions
Socially Responsible
Considers the social impact of its activities and its relationship to the many stakeholders, including them in its planning and management processes
Integrated with the Environment
Sees itself as part of the environment, “collaborating with its processes and respecting its limits”
Respectful to the Human Being
Recognizes in its activities each person’s right to happiness and contributes to their personal fulfillment
Economically Consistent
Takes a broader, longer perspective into consideration when calculating return on decisions and investments
Levels
The deeper the organization plans to go, the greater the needed change and its sustainability.
And Scopes
It starts with the individual, but depending on the organization’s impact, it could really influence the planet.
