Widening role of business in a fast-developing society

CORPORATE Social Responsibility (CSR) was launched several decades ago with the best of intentions and the highest of aspirations. If every company chipped in both money and free work-time the social scene could be improved, efforts to help the less fortunate could be increased and the issue of the climate could be addressed. The bonus for a company was that it would be seen to be a Good Citizen. In other words, the investment was not wholly profit justified but could be deducted from the public relations budget.

What became of CSR?

Today CSR is seen to have failed to achieve enough of what was expected of it. The finance devoted to it was relatively small. PR budgets are among the first to be cut in a crisis and the demands on them are notoriously mercurial. They were neither consistent nor substantial. But the concept of CSR is alive and thriving. Not as originally conceived, but as an acknowledgement of the duty of all wealth creators to finance and drive the development of a stable and sustainable society. That development is now partly visible, although daily technological progress raises new needs for understanding and control.