Corporate social responsibility and the challenge of triple bottom line integration: insights from the Lebanese context

The notion of sustainability has been evolving and is increasingly understood to encompass considerations of economic viability, as well as environmental sustainability and social responsibility. This paper examines how linking these three legs of sustainability remains a challenge and explores empirically the performance of a sample of Lebanese organisations in the three strands of responsibility. The findings suggest that organisations in a developing country context report challenges in maintaining a sustainable performance on the three dimensions, respectively and that Triple Bottom Line (TBL) integration remains a distant aspiration. Recommendations for enhancing the sustainability performance of companies are provided as well as practical suggestions and insights into how to improve the prospects of TBL integration.