ity represent a view that businesses, like everyone in the world, have some obligation to support the general welfare in ways determined by the needs of the surrounding community.in order from top to bottom, these four obligations are decreasingly pressing within the theory of corporate social responsibility. After satisfying the top responsibility, attention turns to the second and so on. At the extremes, the logic behind this ranking works easily. A law firm on the verge of going broke probably doesn t have the responsibility to open up for school visits, at least not if the tours interfere with the accumulation of billable hours and revenue. Obviously, if the firm does go broke and out of business, there won t be any school visits in any case, so faced with financial hardship, lawyers are clearly obligated to fulfill their economic obligations before philanthropic ones.among individuals promoting a strong sense of corporate responsibility for the surrounding community, there may have been no clear answer to the question about the proper course of action. Regardless, corporate social responsibility means every business holds four kinds of obligations and should respond to them in order: first the economic, then the legal, next the ethical, and finally the philanthropic.Triple Bottom Linebrings us to the next model. The triple bottom line is a form of corporate social responsibility dictating that corporate leaders tabulate bottom-line results not only in economic terms (costs versus revenue) but also in terms of company effects in the social realm, and with respect to the environment. There are two keys to this idea. First, the three columns of responsibility must be kept separate, with results reported independently for each. Second, in all three of these areas, the company should obtain sustainable results. The notion of sustainability is very specific. At the intersection of ethics and economics, sustainability means the long-term maintenance of balance. As elaborated by theorists including John Elkington, here s how the balance is defined and achieved economically, socially, and environmentally: sustainability values ??long-term financial solidity over more volatile, short-term profits, no matter how high. According to the triple-bottom-line model, large corporations have a responsibility to create business plans allowing stable and prolonged action. That bias in favor of duration should make companies hesitant about investing in things like dot-coms. While it s true that speculative ventures may lead to windfalls, they may also lead to collapse. Silicon Valley, California, for example, is full of small, start-up companies. A few will convert into the next Google, Apple, and Microsoft. What gets left out, however, of the newspaper reports hailing the accomplishments of a Steve Jobs or a Bill Gates are all those other people who never made it (all those who invested family savings in a project that ended up bankrupt). Sustainability as a virtue means valuing business plans that may not lead to quick riches but that also avoid calamitous losses. Social sustainability values ??balance in people s lives and the way we live. A world in which a few Fortune 500 executives are hauling down millions a year, while millions of people elsewhere in the world are living on pennies a day can t go on forever. As the imbalances grow, as the rich get richer and the poor get both poorer and more numerous, the chances that society itself will collapse in anger and revolution increase. The threat of governmental overthrow from below sounds remote to Americans who are accustomed to a solid middle class and minimal resentment of the wealthy. In world history, however, such revolutions are quite common. That doesn t mean revolution is coming to our time s developed nations. It may indicate, however, that for a business to be stable over the long term, opportunities and subsequently wealth need to be spread out to cover as many people as possible.fair trade movement fits this ethical imperative to shared opportunity and wealth. Developed and refined as an idea in Europe in the 1960s, organizations promoting fair trade ask businesses (especially large producers in the richest countries) to guarantee that suppliers in impoverished nations receive reasonable payment for their goods and services even when the raw economic laws of supply and demand don t require it. An array of ethical arguments may be arranged to support fair trade, but on the front of sustainability, the lead argument is that peace and order in the world depend on the world s resources being divided up in ways that limit envy, resentment, and anger.sustainability doesn t end with dollars; it also requires human respect . Finally, social sustainability requires that corporations as citizens in a specific community of people maintain a healthy relationship with those people. Fitting...
