ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author explains the rise of corporate sustainability, argues for the necessity of a conceptual framework for business and sustainability tools and then outlines such a framework. Clearly, new frameworks are needed to make sense of the options. The heuristic outlined she offers a framework for understanding how various tools fit together. Corporate sustainability tools have evolved through different stages over the past few decades of nineteenth century. Frustrated by the lack of government enforcement on environmental and social justice issues since the 1980s, several non-governmental organisations, trade unions and other civil-society actors have questioned, using media and Internet campaigns, the performance of high-profile corporations. With the globalisation of the economy, the power to integrate social and environmental objectives into economic activities is moving out of the realm of the nation-state and into new spheres. Triple bottom line is one common expression used to capture activities that seek to integrate and balance economic, social and environmental objectives.
