Aligning Corporate Social Responsibility with the United Nations’ Sustainability Goals: Trickier than it Seems?

This article explores the profound mismatch between the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and fundamentals for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The common survival of human life, society, and the global order as we know it, and the need for companies to make profit is not easy. The intractability of the problem is often underestimated in public as well as scientific debate. This article discusses the problem and possible ways to cope with it through ‘social entrepreneurship’ illustrated here by a study of nine firms in Sweden. The study draws on an amalgamation of Schumpeterian theory about “creative destruction” and the concept of “Emerging Davids vs. Greening Goliaths.”