Corporations and CSR in Asia: Sustainability as the future driver of corporate innovation and entrepreneurship

Abstract

Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) departments in global and national businesses are relatively new. Most CSR and sustainability functions have been created in companies only in recent decades and have gained the most significant growth and momentum post-millennium, following the Johannesburg Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002. The CEOs of leading multinational corporations have said recently that the businesses that will lead in the next decades will be those whose business models directly address the world’s most pressing challenges, such as climate change, global resource management, economic empowerment, demographic shifts and lifestyles. The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) has said that this shift will require sustainability-driven innovation, which will define the next agenda for business.