This book set out to understand Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and particularly its potential and limitations for addressing key ‘challenges’ in the business–society relationship: the environment, development and governance. The oil and gas industry served as a window to a better understanding of what CSR can or cannot accomplish. This chapter briefly summarises the book's findings and provides recommendations for companies and policy makers.

Potential and limitations of CSR

The evidence in this book suggests that CSR has the greatest potential for addressing environmental challenges. Corporate reporting on the environment is steadily improving, new environmentally friendly technologies are being developed and tangible improvements are being made by some companies. Environmental challenges benefit from the specific expertise that companies possess, as technical and managerial skills greatly assist environmental improvements. Most crucially, environmental initiatives appear to lead to win-win outcomes: the environmental impact of companies is reduced, while companies benefit from lower operating costs, better equipment and innovation.

In contrast, the evidence in this book suggests that CSR has less potential for addressing problems related to community development and governance. Companies could greatly benefit from better community relations and improved governance: fewer operational losses as a result of community dissatisfaction, less corruption, improved corporate reputations and so on. The host countries could also greatly benefit from improvements in human development and governance, in terms of increased private investment, higher levels of education, better public services and so on.