Responsible Leadership and Corporate Social Responsibility:

Many companies have initiated a variety of sustainable development initiatives to address the demands and expectations of society. Although most analysts argue that these initiatives contribute to making businesses more profitable, there are many managers who are not yet convinced of the validity of this argument. The reason is that most sustainable development initiatives have been developed in isolation of business activity and are not yet directly linked to business strategy. One way to strengthen the link between the two is to measure the extent to which a company's performance increases as a result of implementing sustainable development initiatives. This article examines the best available metrics used by twenty major German companies to measure sustainability.