Business in Society: Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability

Business arises within society; it operates within society, interacts with society and carries out its activity in society. Society offers business infrastructures, fosters education (which has its repercussions for business), promulgates laws and establishes juridical guarantees for the operation of business, sees to monetary stability, defense, and the security of social relations, among other actions business counts upon. The most obvious thing business does for society is to offer products and services under conditions that make them more accessible than they would otherwise be, to create employment, generate wealth, and pay taxes. But this is not all. Companies lend dynamism to the economy and the activity of other companies and facilitate learning and social relations; they take on challenges and serve as channels for productive investment and innovation. Businesses, besides, are not alien to the culture or cultures around them; with their own cultures, they can themselves be catalysts for cultural change. Businesses also come into relation with the natural environment, impacting it in various ways: by taking raw materials, polluting, leaving residue behind, and at times failing to respect environmental diversity – but they can also be sensitive to the environment and care for it. The business-society relationship, then, appears to be of great importance. This requires that we understand what society is, and what role business plays in it. As with any subject, there are different versions of what is meant by “society,” some of them very influential. For some, society is nothing more than a name with no content – a mere aggregate of individuals – while for others it is a whole in which persons become enormously diluted. These are the positions of radical individualism and positions close to collectivism. The alternative posited here holds that society is a social entity that really exists in those who comprise it united by mutual bonds. The society is neither a mere sum of individuals, nor a homogeneous whole, but a heterogeneous and fully diverse real entity. In such an entity, persons are acknowledged in their dignity and freedom and in their participation in the good of society as a whole. Under this perspective the common good provides a crucial orientation for society and human communities since it lends moral legitimacy to the various articulations of social life and economic activity. The relations between business and the natural and human environment are also relevant. We will study this relationship from the humanist point of view, centered on the person, and contrast it with other positions. Then we will analyze the concept of sustainability, which in essence is a “vertical” vision of the common good, which considers future effects on the natural and social environment and impacts of current activities on future generations. The final section of this chapter is devoted to reflecting on the social and ecological responsibilities of business companies within society and the market economy, reviewing certain controversies and misunderstandings and offering a series of criteria to aid in taking these responsibilities seriously.