More and more corporations are taking an interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR). CSR is made up of three broad layers. The most basic is traditional corporate charity work. Companies typically spend about 1% of pre-tax profits on worthy projects. But many feel that simply writing cheques to charities is no longer enough. In some companies, shareholders want to know that their money is being put to good use, and employees want to be actively involved in good works.
越来越多的公司对企业社会责任感兴趣。企业社会责任由三个广泛的层面组成，最基本的是传统的企业慈善工作。公司通常将税前利润的1%用于有价值的项目。但许多人认为，仅仅给慈善机构开支票并不够，在一些公司，股东们希望知道他们的钱得到了很好的利用，员工们希望积极参与到好的项目中来。
Money alone is not the answer when companies come under attack for their behavior. Hence the second layer of CSR, which is a branch of risk management. Starting in the 1980s, with environmental disasters such as the explosion at Bhopal and the Exxon Valdez oil spill, industry after industry has suffered blows to its reputation.
当公司因其行为而受到攻击时，仅靠金钱并不能解决问题。因此，企业社会责任的第二层是风险管理的一个分支。从20世纪80年代开始，随着博帕尔爆炸和埃克森瓦尔迪兹石油泄漏等环境灾难，一个又一个行业的声誉受到了打击。
So, companies often responded by trying to manage the risks. They talk to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and to governments, create codes of conduct and devote themselves to more transparency in their operations. Increasingly, too. they, along with their competitors, set common rules to spread risks.
因此，公司通常通过尝试管理风险来应对。他们与非政府组织和政府对话，制定行为准则，致力于提高运营中的透明度。越来越多。他们与竞争对手一起制定了共同的规则来分散风险。
All this is largely defensive, but there are also opportunities for those that get ahead of the game. The emphasis on opportunity is the third layer of CSR: the idea that it can help to create value. If approached in a strategic way, CSR could become part of a company's competitive advantage. That is just the sort of thing chief executives like to hear. The idea of "doing well by doing good" has become popular.
所有这些基本上都是防御性的，但对于那些在竞争中领先的人来说，也有机会。对机会的强调是企业社会责任的第三层：它可以帮助创造价值。如果采用战略方式，企业社会责任可能成为公司竞争优势的一部分。这正是首席执行官喜欢听到的事情。“通过行善把事业做好”的想法已经流行起来。
Nevertheless, the business of trying to be good is bringing difficult questions to executives. Can you measure CSR performance? Should you be cooperating with NGOs and you’re your competitors? Is there any really competitive advantage to be had from a green strategy?
尽管如此，努力做一个好的企业给高管们带来了难题。你能衡量企业社会责任绩效吗？你是否应该与非政府组织合作，而你是你的竞争对手？绿色战略是否有真正的竞争优势？
Corporate social responsibility is now seen as a mainstream. Big companies want to tell the world about their good citizenship with their devotion to social responsibilities. Done badly, CSR is often just window-dressing and can be positively harmful. Done well, though, it is not some separate activity that companies do on the side, a corner of corporate life reserved for virtue：it is just good business.
企业社会责任现在被视为主流。大公司希望通过对社会责任的投入，向世界展示他们的良好公民身份。如果做得不好，企业社会责任往往只是一个幌子，可能会产生危害。尽管做得很好，但这并不是公司在一旁做的单独活动，这是企业生活中留给美德的一个角落：这只是个好生意。
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