Corporate social responsibility in the water industry: A critical review

Abstract

The public demand for companies to assume responsibility for social and environmental impacts of their operations has led to an increase in the number of industries adopting corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies. The water industry, defined in this article as public and private suppliers of water, holds the unique responsibility to manage a critical natural resource. As such, a review of scholarship on CSR in the water industry provides an entry point to assess the specific role the water industry plays in addressing societal and environmental concerns. This review identifies three prominent themes that appear in the existing literature. The first theme investigates the motivations for the water industry to utilize CSR strategies; the second describes the limitations of current CSR frameworks; and the last is an assessment of whether CSR policies and practices differ between public and private water companies. Through a critical review of each theme, this article evaluates the level of CSR engagement in the water industry, and if CSR activity supports further privatization. Taken together, this review article provides a summary of the current state of research on CSR within the water industry, analyses limitations on current evaluation methods and frameworks, and connects the literature to broader themes on the privatization of water and market environmentalism. We conclude with a discussion of future research topics such as CSR barriers to implementation, water‐related CSR indicators, and the relationship of CSR policies to remunicipalization of water providers.