It's all in the name

There are endless names for all of this, from CSR to sustainability, green to business ethics. Unsurprisingly there are just as many definitions ranging from the all-encompassing to the nit-picky specific most loved by specialists and geeks. For me I favour the broad - the whole lot can be best summed up by the term corporate responsibility - CR: your business doing what it does, but in a responsible manner. So this is how I shall refer to it from now on, you have been warned. As for what 'responsible' is, who you are responsible to, what it actually means in practice, well, we'll get onto that another time.

First, though, three of the most commonly used terminologies to help you navigate your way through the quagmire. 'Corporate Social Responsibility' or 'CSR' is the most commonly known, although it is now a rather misleading description. As I understand it, two separate streams of activity - the social and the environmental - developed over time, and at various points were paired up, merged, separated, the gaps filled in, evolved. This does well to explain where the 'S' of CSR came from, but while all this is very interesting (err...?!) I think there is little to be gained by dwelling on it; let's just get on with it please?

Another regular is 'sustainability', usually used to describe environmental impact or resource availability. 'Green' is in my opinion the most ridiculous of all and has done the most damage through misguided PR exploitation when talking about environmental impact. Use it and be prepared to hear me laugh at you.

There are all sorts of wonderful places that you can check out definitions and descriptions, although I must say that stalwart of modern day knowledge, Wikipedia, does a pretty good job of explaining CSR if you're interested. Do we need all these different terms? Maybe, maybe not - but if it gets more people talking about it because they get to use their new pet name then all the better, I say. Makes it awfully tricky when you're looking for a job though...