Refraining from exploiting disaster-hit communities, as an emerging principle of corporate social responsibility

Abstract

Disasters are more destructive and frequent in the age of climate change, overpopulation, and neoliberal globalisation. While the literature on disaster prevention and management proliferates, the role of for-profit corporations has only recently started to be examined, usually through the lens of corporate social responsibility (CSR)—the expectation that business will consider social and environmental interests in its operations, in addition to profit. There is lately much academic creativity in the CSR space pertaining to why and how large corporations should contribute to disaster recovery, but a conceptual red thread is missing. This paper proposes that the unifying concept is the CSR principle of refraining from exploiting disaster-hit communities. Indeed, CSR principles evolve in time, reflecting contemporary societal priorities. In a contractarian perspective on CSR, a rational community would nowadays have solid reasons to expect, in its social contract with business, the latter's commitment to decency when the former is devastated by earthquakes, pandemics, wars, and the like.