CSR Needs CPR: Corporate Sustainability and Politics

Thomas Lyon, Magali Delmas, John Maxwell, Pratima Bansal, Mireille Chiroleu-Assouline, Patricia Crifo, Rodophe Durand, Jean-Pascal Gond (), Andrew King (), Michael Lenox, Michael Toffel, David Vogel and Frank Wijen
Additional contact information
Thomas Lyon: University of Michigan [Ann Arbor] - University of Michigan System
Pratima Bansal: UWO - University of Western Ontario
Rodophe Durand: HEC Paris - Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales
Jean-Pascal Gond: Cass Business School - City University London - City University London
Andrew King: Tuck School of Business - Dartmouth College [Hanover]
Michael Lenox: Darden School of Business
Michael Toffel: Harvard Business School - Harvard University
David Vogel: LBNL - Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory [Berkeley]
Frank Wijen: Rotterdam School of Management of Erasmus University - Rotterdam School of Management of Erasmus University

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Abstract: Corporate social responsibility has gone mainstream, and many companies have taken meaningful steps towards a more sustainable future. Yet global environmental indicators continue to worsen, and individual corporate efforts may be hitting the point of diminishing returns. Voluntary action by the private sector is not a panacea-regulatory action by the public sector remains necessary. Such public sector progress will be more likely if it is supported by influential segments of the business community. Recent court rulings in the U.S. make it easy for companies to hide their political activities from the public, yet the indicators of CSR used by ratings agencies and socially responsible investment funds mostly ignore corporate political action. We argue that it is time for CSR metrics to be expanded to critically assess and evaluate firms based on the sustainability impacts of their public policy positions. To enable such assessments, firms need to become as transparent about their political activity as many have become about their CSR efforts, and CSR rating services and ethical investment funds need to demand such information from firms and include an assessment of corporate political activity in their ratings. † We thank the Albert and Elaine Borchard Foundation for their generous financial support.

Date: 2018-06-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env
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Published in California Management Review, 2018, 60 (4), pp.5 - 24. ⟨10.1177/0008125618778854⟩

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Working Paper: CSR Needs CPR: Corporate Sustainability and Politics (2018)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-01846042

DOI: 10.1177/0008125618778854

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