What Exactly is Corporate Responsibility towards Nature?: Ecological Responsibility or Management of Nature?

The paper analyses the motives and consequences of including environmental protection in good managerial practices driven by a concern of responsible corporate behaviour. Corporate Social Responsibility is increasingly discussed in economics and management studies today. This idea is fairly recent and stems from a philosophical school of thought attributed to Hans Jonas, which says that nature must be preserved for anthropocentric as well as biocentric reasons. In this respect, the consequences that these two visions imply for men and companies will be developed. Corporate leaders often make use of this concept, which finds its origins in philosophy, in order to analyse the normative behaviour of their companies. In this respect we shall favour a jonasian interpretation. Hans Jonas will help us question the fundamental meaning of responsibility. We will attempt to investigate this meaning using CSR. More specifically, this article tries to answer the question: what exactly is corporate responsibility? Is it a mere concept currently in fashion, or is it a new structural approach which could indeed take responsibility into account in so far as long-term environmental preservation is concerned? In order to answer this question, we shall first propose a reading of "stakeholders". This approach poses several problems when dealing with corporate responsibility regarding the preservation of nature. Secondly, we shall present a more detailed analysis of such corporate social responsibility and the problems it poses. The debate regarding action with the interest of its outcome and action in the interest of the action itself shall be the focal point of our discussion. This article will adopt a narrative and critical methodology. So as to achieve this goal, we propose to critically analyse theoretical paradigms and test them through case studies.