ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on environmental aspects of responsible care (RC) and corporate social responsibility (CSR), and the CSR performance. It analyses relationships between RC and CSR to understand the mechanisms of their parallel developments. The chapter looks at the antecedents of RC adoption, the degree of RC implementation, the motivation and timing of the introduction of CSR concepts, the underlying motivation, and the CSR performance. It considers the motivations behind adopting RC. The chapter shows that the development and adoption of RC in the chemical industry was driven by environmental incidences and the resulting environmental pressures by different stakeholder groups. In general, RC includes a set of defined rules, and CSR is a much broader concept that can be and is complemented by more concrete guidelines such as the guidelines of the Global Reporting Initiative. Differences between RC and CSR are specifically relevant with regard to firm size.
