Financial Times in its latest mastering management series discusses sustainability in the downturn.

The interesting aspect is their emphasis (as I suggested in an earlier post) about the decline of CSR and rise of Sustainability in the downturn.

We see things differently. The downturn will produce more integrated, strategic and value-creating sustainability efforts in many companies. While traditional corporate responsibility and philanthropic initiatives may suffer, core elements of the sustainability agenda will survive or even thrive in a re-ordered economy.

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Changing economic and regulatory environments will lead more companies to adopt corporate strategies that include sustainability as a core issue. In their simplest form, such strategies will focus on helping a company’s customers to cope with their own sustainability issues.

CSR is Insurance but Sustainability is strategy.