China Initiative for Sustainable Development
Welcome to the China Initiative for Sustainable Development. This initiative is an international forum for sharing knowledge and information, networking across learners, thinkers, and do-ers, and ultimately providing concrete ways to do sustainable development.
For many environmental managers, policy makers and researchers it has become apparent that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has the potential to make a very significant contribution to sustainable development. Like "sustainable development" CSR covers an extremely broad range of aspirations and activities. It is, in fact, this very breadth of interpretation that has inspired us to initiate a project documenting, examining, and actively shaping this field of endeavor.
The consortium sponsoring this initiative combines the imagination and breadth of academic researchers with on-the-ground implementation work of an international NGO.
Our collaboration may well yield theoretical insights and assist in clarifying the definition of CSR. But our primary objective is to gather and disseminate information about the broadest possible range of examples of CSR in practice and to encourage practitioners to become involved in shaping these examples.
We believe that small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), and family/founder owned and operated businesses present a particularly interesting context for imbedding CSR principles in the core of a business model. For this reason, a primary focus of our project will be China's socially and environmentally responsible entrepreneurs most of whom are of rural origin. They constitute a neglected, but potentially paradigm shifting model, in one of the world's pivotal societies.
We also acknowledge that a new wave of interest in CSR is sweeping through the world of large corporations, including multi-nationals. They often see CSR in a light that is distinct from smaller companies, and they operate with special constraints-shareholders who want to see annual revenue growth. For these publicly, or government owned businesses, the "business case" for CSR, and short term payback on investments is a reality.
By presenting case studies of the entire range of CSR in practice, we hope to capture and broadcast practical suggestions to advancing CSR and, thereby, sustainable development.
Our primary focus will be on China. But we are open to comparative research from other transition, developing, and developed countries. Please use the mechanisms in this website to contact us with your comments or your offers to provide additional case studies or management and problem solving expertise.
Our approach will be longitudinal and highly interactive. It is our intention to avoid "one time snap shots" of enterprises practicing CSR. We are committed to following our case studies over time so that practitioners and researchers can follow them as they solve problems in the real world. We also hope that those using this resource will become actively involved in assisting our entrepreneur-partners so that they may be the beneficiaries of our work and not just be relegated to being mined for data.
