3. Overview of the Aggregate Results of the International Corporate Sustainability Barometer

Managing sustainable development issues on the corporate level is generally acknowledged to be of growing importance for companies world-wide. Yet, to date little is known about the practice of sustainability management in different countries and how national practices compare to each other. More specifically, do companies in different regions of the world manage sustainability similarly, that is, is corporate sustainability a global trend and is there an “international state of the art” of sustainability management practice, perhaps even reflecting isomorphic tendencies? Or is sustainability management more of a regionally differentiated phenomenon? Do local challenges, cultural backgrounds and economic factors lead to different approaches towards corporate sustainability? This chapter presents the international average and country-specific data from the International Corporate Sustainability Barometer (ICSB). The international average results serve as a reference point showing the state of the art for the following 11 chapters offering details on the specific results for each country in the 2012 ICSB survey.