Is Corporate Social Responsibility ready for prime time?

Major companies are embracing corporate social responsibility. The new standard, ISO 26000 is under review but the standard will have no governing body and so will have no compliance or certification requirements. Environmental sustainability imperatives carry weight in terms of corporate positioning and PR, but this is mostly green wash. Real environmental initiatives frequently fall into the camp of compliance issues rather than strategic imperatives. What are the real challenges with corporate social responsibility? Our research indicates corporate social responsibility efforts fall across multiple silos in an organization: public relations, citizenship, compliance, procurement, quality, human resources, marketing, etc. As such, it is hard to formulate a consistent strategy without a Chief SRO; and frankly, we do not believe the C-suite really needs to be expanded in corporate America. In our interviews with executives across verticals, we have found that outside of energy utilities, CSR is simply not on the list of strategic imperatives. CSR may be coming, but it's not here yet.