Reimag­in­ing Good Cor­po­rate Cit­i­zen­ship 2035

In order to mas­ter the social chal­lenges of the com­ing decades, a pro­found change in our way of life and econ­o­my is nec­es­sary — a social and eco­log­i­cal trans­for­ma­tion. Com­pa­nies play a cen­tral role in this change process.

Com­pa­nies are impor­tant actors not only because they share respon­si­bil­i­ty for many of the cur­rent prob­lems. Rather, thanks to their resources and ideas, they also have pow­er­ful levers at their dis­pos­al to help shape change both quick­ly and innovatively.

Cor­po­rate Social Respon­si­bil­i­ty and Core Business

But how do com­pa­nies them­selves see their role?

• What envi­ron­men­tal and social impact, what val­ue for soci­ety will com­pa­nies have in the future?
• Can core busi­ness, cor­po­rate cit­i­zen­ship, cor­po­rate social respon­si­bil­i­ty and sus­tain­abil­i­ty con­tin­ue to be con­sid­ered separately?
• Should­n’t cor­po­rate respon­si­bil­i­ty rather be an inte­gral part of cor­po­rate action?

These ques­tions are explored in our impulse paper, which is avail­able for down­load here:

The vision of cor­po­rate decision-makers

We con­duct­ed 15 inter­views with deci­sion-mak­ers and asked them how they see the future of cor­po­rate respon­si­bil­i­ty. They include rep­re­sen­ta­tives from com­pa­nies of dif­fer­ent types and sizes, such as BASF SE, ein­horn prod­ucts GmbH, Viess­mann Group and Weleda. 

Our inter­vie­wees large­ly agreed that the bound­aries between eco­log­i­cal, social and eco­nom­ic sus­tain­abil­i­ty will dis­ap­pear in the future — and that this is pre­cise­ly why it is impor­tant to think about social solu­tions as a whole.