Glossary

The following terms are central to the sustainability and corporate responsibility (CR) debate:

Areas for action: are those areas in which society and policymakers expect business to take, or at least to share, responsibility, thus giving rise to a need for action. Among the most important areas for action are employee interests, environmental protection at the place of work, environmental product policies, consumer protection, the social and environmental aspects of the supply chain, contributions to the regulatory framework and community involvement. These fundamental areas for action each raise specific > Issues of relevance to the industry and/or company in question.

Challenges: are those > Issues which are comparatively new and hence call for significant action on the part of the company.

Core business: means all the company’s value-added processes as well as any adjunct processes, such as procurement and HR management, which are directly linked to the core business. Charitable donations and other not-for-profit activities do not count as core business.

Corporate Responsibility: stands for responsible and transparent corporate governance which takes account of both business interests and environmental and social interests as well. Environmental protection, the interests of employees and community involvement all come under the CR umbrella, which extends the full length of the supply chain. Corporate governance and controlling are also important aspects of CR.

CR-Management: stands for the company-wide strategic coordination of the areas listed under > Corporate Responsibility in keeping with CR’s cross-sectional thrust. The aim is to minimize the risks, to safeguard the confidence of employees, customers, regulators and society at large and to explore opportunities for the future. This calls for properly coordinated and focused cooperation in a variety of areas from corporate development and human resources to environmental protection, health and safety, procurement and compliance, each with its own specific tasks and processes.

CR-strategy: comprises the strategic goals derived from the > Challenges. When drafting the CR strategy, the relevance of the various > Issues to the various business processes is analysed so that targets can be set. The focus in each case will depend on the > Positioning.

Issues Management: in the CR context stands for the timely identification of > Issues and related expectations so that these can be taken into account in the affected business areas and functions. This early warning system relies heavily on systematic stakeholder dialogue and is concerned not so much with reputation management as with facilitating change and innovation in the > Core business.

Issues: in the CR context are all those matters which have to do with society’s expectations. These include emerging issues as well as topical issues which are already a subject of public debate, such as climate change and corruption, or which have already been integrated in the company’s processes. Within companies, CR issues identified as important are often designated CR areas for action.

Positioning: means the importance that is attached to the company’s CR activities in relation to the relevant areas for action and company-specific CR issues they contain. Positioning is accomplished by defining the contribution which CR is to make to the company’s image, corporate culture, sustainability, business and risk management. The exact definition varies depending on how the company’s risks and opportunities are balanced, but must always accord with, support and promote the corporate strategy.

Sustainability: describes the economic model of sustainable development which the Brundtland Commission in 1987 described as development “to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

Triple Bottom Line (TBL): refers to the three pillars of sustainability (people, planet, profit) and provides companies with a simple framework for measuring and publicizing their performance. In the broadest sense, it stands for that set of values, issues and processes which is needed to bring a company into line with the broader environmental, social and economic systems within which it operates. The concept was widely discussed in the late 1990s, but these days is all but obsolete, since the “three pillars” are no longer regarded as equivalent dimensions.