CSR, Green Innovation and Creation of Shared Value: Transforming Business Strategy to Achieve Durable Sustainability Impact

Dear Colleagues,

In the past two decades, the academic community has firmly pushed for rethinking the idea of business and how it must interpret its role in society. Consequently, there has been a significant transformation in theorizing regarding corporate social responsibility (CSR) in general and environmental and social sustainability issues. The renewed conceptualizations have centred on the need to align economic objectives with social and environmental ones to improve simultaneously societal benefits and the competitive advantage and profit for businesses. Among these models, the sometimes contested idea of creating shared value, first advocated by Michael Porter and Mark Kramer, invited businesses to integrate sustainability concerns and more general considerations of ethical responsibility into the heart of business strategy by seeking out business opportunities which at once combine a degree of profitability with making a real and substantial contribution to social progress in the communities where businesses operate.

However, this academic transformation has often not been reflected in real-world business practices, which, in many cases, fall short of these inspirational ideas but scratch the surface of sustainability without really appreciating the depth of our era's ecological and social challenges. In some cases, they still amount to pure greenwashing when the environment continues (often literally) to burn, and the various inequalities (e.g., gender, age, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, social class and religion) and other practices of social irresponsibility, if not illegality (think of workplace safety), continue unabated.

To take the new approach to strategy implies a serious commitment, first, to rethinking business purposes and, second, to a solid transformative and innovative effort that will have a durable impact on community and environmental sustainability. Legislative requirements such as those of the EU Green New Deal, the Green Investment Taxonomy, SFDR and CSRD Directives point clearly in this direction, as, of course, do the aspirational, if not legally binding, UN Sustainable Development Goals.

In this Special Issue, we invite papers on all aspects of the above subject matter for critical reflection. Purely conceptual articles, as well as empirical studies and case studies, are welcome. Given the nature of the sustainability challenges of our day, interdisciplinary studies will be particularly welcome.

Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Creating shared value strategies for sustainable development in different sectors;
• Social and green innovation practices;
• New sustainable approaches to value distribution;
• CSR strategies;
• New trends in value measurement for sustainability.

We look forward to receiving your contributions. 

Dr. Floriana Fusco
Prof. Dr. Patrick O'Sullivan
Guest Editors

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• corporate social responsibility
• creating shared value
• green innovation
• greenwashing
• sustainability impact
• business purpose
• circular economy
• Sustainable Development Goals