The business community has made and will continue to make essential contributions toward achieving the goal of sustainable development.  The most important contribution of business is the conduct of business itself: its core responsibility is to yield competitive returns to owners of capital by identifying and developing promising investment opportunities.  In the process, businesses provide jobs and produce goods and services that consumers want to buy.

In addition, businesses have to comply with legal requirements and, as a practical matter, must respond to “softer” societal expectations not written down in law books. OECD research suggests that many businesses have invested heavily in improving their abilities to do this because they recognise their interdependence with the societies in which they operate.  Indeed, interdependence lies at the heart of corporate responsibility, which the OECD Investment Committee defines as the actions taken by businesses to nurture their relationships with the societies in which they operate.

Of course, societies - and especially governments - can also nurture this relationship by protecting rights and by providing public services such as law enforcement, social insurance, appropriate regulation and infrastructure investment and by financing these activities via a well-designed, disciplined tax system.  If the actions of both the business sector and society are synergistic, then the “fit” between the two helps to foster an atmosphere of mutual trust and predictability that facilitates the conduct of business and enhances economic, social and environmental welfare. 

The Investment Committee's work in this area seeks to: document developments in corporate responsibility and to highlight good practices; improve understanding of the different roles played by business and governments in raising general well-being; identify areas of synergy between Guidelines implementation and private initiatives; improve understanding of shared interest of adhering and non-adhering countries in corporate responsibility initiatives.