A model of corporate sustainability

The discussion of corporate sustainability (CS) is hindered by a lack of definitional clarity of the concept of CS and neighboring concepts. Therefore in this paper a framework of corporate sustainability is construdted from information derived from guidelines concerning corporate sustainability. Within this framework, a differentiation between sustainability performance and its managerial antecedents is undertaken. This permits a differentiated appraisal of formal as well as informal prerequisites for sustainability performance within companies, enabling to tackle the immense increase of complexity of decision owed to corporate adherence to the goal of sustainability. Furthermore, it enables the analysis of different definitions of the concept of corporate social responsibility as well as of their relation to the concept of CS and sustainable development