This article presents a case of the early stages of an attempted integration of environmental management and corporate responsibility in a UK utility company, which may, in due course, develop into a more holistic orientation towards corporate sustainability. The company had made some deliberate attempts to link environmental and social responsibility issues. However, this integration was partial and contested within the company. The case shows that dealing with environmental soundness and starting to integrate environmental and social issues and management need not be a sequential process. Institutional and wider social factors are shown to play a strong role in influencing company thinking and actions in this area, seemingly sending rather mixed signals in this case. The case also highlights the role of sustainability champions in making links between the organization’s business purpose, its environmental performance and its social responsibility in terms of the long term sustainability of the region and the company’s future. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. Received 30 June 2003 Revised 8 September 2003 Accepted 17 December 2003 INTRODUCTION T his paper arises out of the author’s long term research interest in the pro- environmental strategic and organiza- tional change (corporate ‘greening’) in some of the UK’s utility industries (water and sewer- age, and electricity distribution). With the focus on various aspects of environmental strategy and performance, empirical research was conducted in two phases over a period of seven years. Social issues or questions of cor- porate social responsibility were not initially included in the research design as the researchers felt that this would unduly confuse the subject. However, from the start it became clear that for many respondents environment was not as separate from other issues, such as Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. CORPORATE SUSTAINABILITY – INTEGRATING ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL CONCERNS? Anja Schaefer* Open University Business School, UK Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management Corp. Soc. Responsib. Environ. Mgmt. 11, 179–187 (2004) Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/csr.070 * Correspondence to: Dr. Anja Schaefer, Open University Business School, Michael-Young Building, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK. E-mail: a.schaefer@open.ac.uk