Should we measure corporate social responsibility?

Abstract

Abstract This paper is critical towards efforts that try and measure corporate social responsibility (CSR). A critical approach can be important for the development of the theory of the emerging field of corporate social responsibility. A critical and provocative approach can generate discussion and debate. Three main points of critique are presented toward the current efforts in the literature to measure corporate contributions to economic, social and ecological sustainability. First, the use of the concepts of eco‐efficiency and eco‐efficacy in measuring corporate contributions to sustainability are criticized from the viewpoint of the complementarity relation of human‐manufactured capital, natural capital and social sustaining functions. Second, the use of measures that focus on an individual process or an individual company are reconsidered with an approach to industrial and firm networks. Third, the use of the monetary value is reconsidered, e.g. by suggesting an approach based on physical material and energy flows and on a new paradigmatic foundation for social responsibility. The social and ecological indicators illustrating the social and environmental impacts of economic activity and of firms can be combined with economic indicators, but not expressed in monetary terms. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment.