Responsible Investing and Corporate Social Responsibility for Engaged Sustainability

Abstract

Corporate social contract has morphed from Milton Friedman’s “only social responsibility of business (is) to use its resource …… to increase its profits …. within the rules of the game” on to the ‘New Social Contract’ defined as “business is one thread in the complex web of interwoven society… responsible for not just its inanimate inputs and outputs, but for all related human and environmental interactions.” Today, corporate social responsibility encompasses investments that create positive social and environmental impacts beyond financial returns.

In this chapter, the author focuses on socially responsible investing by organizations, both corporate and government, within the context of sustainability, and expands on the value of impact investing and public-private partnership to preempt the disastrous pitfalls of economics without equity. The chapter highlights the emerging global regulations and the crucial roles of corporate social responsibility and public policy stewardship. It also presents the foundations of sustainability analytics and frameworks for ethical resource management and for managing pitfalls of climate change economics without ethics.

This chapter is primarily based on Ramanan, “Introduction to Sustainability Analytics,” ISBN-10: 1498777058 under publication, CRC Press 2018.