Download the 16-page PDF from: WEF or this site
The following joint statement by a task force of World Economic Forum CEOs recommends a Framework for Action that chief executives, chairmen, board directors and executive management teams can use to develop a strategy for managing their company’s impact on society and its relationships with stakeholders. The framework produces a template for a leadership process within the company and is intended to be complementary to the various voluntary corporate citizenship principles and guidelines that have been developed in specific issue areas. Although the statement uses the language of corporate citizenship, we recognize that definitions and approaches vary, with terms such as corporate responsibility, sustainable development and triple-bottom-line also in common usage and different conceptions of what each of these terms means in practice. Our aim is not to focus on specific definitions, but to emphasize the point that these issues are not an ‘add-on’ but fundamental to core business operations and to identify some key leadership actions that can be adapted by most business leaders to their own circumstances.