A few weeks ago I attended an event where I met someone who was determined to try and convince me that Corporate Social Responsibility is a phase, a fad that will eventually become irrelevant. Their argument was that it is only a change in individual responsibility that would lead to a sustainable world. I politely disagreed with them, highlighting that it is not an either or debate. In fact isn’t the idea to have as many people/groups/schools of thought promoting sustainable living? I personally have never assumed that it is CSR alone that is going to save the world. In fact my opinion is quite the opposite. Attaining sustainability can only be achieved through engaging everyone and thing that makes up the world we live in. We need every individual and organisations they are involved in to be singing the same song. Including governments, religious institutions, corporations, mothers groups, you name it. Individuals of course make up all these different stakeholders but to reduce the significance of any other institution is to over simply an extremely complicated issue.

This is especially true in collective cultures (where the group has precedence over the individual) which is the majority of Asia, including China. Promoting individual social and environmental sustainability is extremely important in China but without the companies where individuals work and the government that tightly control the country, pushing sustainability will be difficult.

Last weekend I had the opportunity to visit the ancient city of Pingyao in Shanxi provence in China. During my stay at a lovely hotel I experienced how both individual and corporate responsibility are important in influencing sustainable practises. During my few days stay one of the other guests (the individual) requested that house keeping do not change their towels and bed sheets everyday as it was not necessary. While the hotel (the corporate) would only light the fire when asked by guests to avoid unnecessarily burning wood. Furthermore in the feedback form there was a section to provide recommendations on how they could make the hotel more sustainable, something I have not seen before in China. While this is only a very small example it does highlight how both the individual and companies can promote responsibility in relation to sustainability.

Corporations and how they engage with the issue of sustainability is extremely important. This is new ground for many companies and CSR as an industry helps corporations to be more environmentally and socially responsible. CSR is no more but certainly no less important than the individual or any other ‘stakeholder’ that collectively make up the world we all live in.

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