ABSTRACT
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) refers broadly to actions that business and corporations voluntarily undertake both to promote social and environmental goals and to minimize any potential social and environmental costs associated with their business activities. Most global business leaders embraced CSR by the early 2000s and it became widely accepted in corporate circles that business knows best how to design and implement environmental measures more efficiently than one-size-fits-all command-and-control regulations. The vulnerability of firms to external critique for selective CSR reporting was one of the factors behind the rise of collective approaches to CSR. Individual CSR reporting by firms is perhaps the most widespread type of CSR activity. Most transnational corporations now produce regular CSR reports. The rationale behind CSR is that firms themselves are best placed to ensure compliance and implementation and to monitor progress toward their own environmental and social performance targets and will do so because it makes good business sense.
