The Continued Evolution of CSR

Besides profit, corporations are constantly looking for competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Well, maybe competitive advantage is about profit.

In any event, many corporations have, to their advantage, realized that the whole "going green" thing is not "just a trend" and, more importantly, is about more than just going green.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) continues to evolve. And those that evolve with it will win.

Economic research is showing that those corporations that recognize that are finding some powerful competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Corporations are beginning to form alliances with scientific institutions and communities through what are called boundary organizations.

This is very new.

Historically, boundary organizations have sought to bridge the divide between scientific knowledge and technology on one side with local action within communities toward sustainable development and sustainability on the other.

Most recently, however, corporations are becoming stakeholders and active and equal participants of the collaborative, context-specific communities, boundary organizations arrange and manage at the local level.

The fundamental purpose of these collaborative communities is to implement CSR and S&T into action at the local level.

What's the next evolution?

Connecting those local communities into a global network. That is, a global network of learning systems that feed, and are fed by local communities in a recursive, evolving, knowledge loop.

This may be easier than some might at first think as the supply chains are of course already in place.

EJ Wensing