Caring for the environment- sound business strategy or corporate social responsibility?

As an MBA student at Virginia Tech nearly 18 years ago, one of my courses was on the ”Social, Legal & Ethical environments of Business”.  Professor Rich Wokutch explained to our class concepts such as “enlightened self interest” and “corporate social responsibility” (CSR)- which, at the time, were fairly new. I clearly remember using the Bhopal gas tragedy as an example to debate the notion of CSR in class.

Since I graduated, two Iraq wars (and one in Afghanistan) have happened. As also the dotcom boom and bust that made a few richer but left many more poorer. The horror of 9/11 made “Al Qaeda” a commonly used word and changed our attitude to life, and not just air travel. Well-known global brands such as Enron and Arthur Andersen have all but disappeared- and if they are remembered, it is only for the wrong reasons. A slew of regulation has been enacted to make companies behave. Outsourcing has become a multi billion dollar industry. And the infamous shootings on its campus in April this year have given Virginia Tech a dubious distinction. 

But even now, there is, in my view, no universal agreement on what corporate social responsibility really is. Take environmental protection as an example. Classical economics would have us treat the environment as an “externality”. But can we really afford to do so any longer? Of what use is competitive superiority if large parts of the planet as we know it (markets and all) are set to disappear? Are conservation, environment protection, green manufacturing, green IT etc. fads or do they constitute CSR? Or are they, after all, elements of a savvy business strategy- and therefore, enlightened self interest?