Convergence between the implementation of CSR and the potential of

Sustainable development (SD) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) can be approached either from the angle of the debate on ideas and societal choices, or from the more restricted angle of the corporate sphere.

The first axis opens up to essentially conceptual debates concerning the search for theoretical frames of reference. Interesting though these approaches may be, they offer little in the way of tools for action. We will only mention them briefly when attempting to clarify the meaning of SD and CSR as a prelude to our developments, which are more in line with an operational perspective.

The second axis is based on a managerial logic. SD and CSR are likely to bring potentially significant changes to managers' decision-making contexts. The understanding of environments (technical, social and economic) and of the horizons linked to the decisions to be taken is modified; the complexity of power and regulation systems is increased by the greater number of stakeholders.

Potential changes in decision-making contexts inevitably produce consequences and new challenges for management and control systems. At the level of management control in particular, traditional models are likely to be modified in three directions:

• the first concerns the scope of applications, as the areas of action have been broadened (examples include life cycle management, taking externalities into account, etc.);

• the second involves researching and identifying the factors triggering resource consumption. In fact, traceability is becoming more complex as performance criteria diversify beyond financial criteria alone;

• following on logically from the previous point, the question arises of the integration of measurements and the management systems that produce them. The issue becomes more organizational, as it leads to the question of the place, in this new context, of management control in the steering system. Are we moving towards coupling or decoupling control systems?

The aim of this article is to focus on the first two points, using the ABC (Activity-Based Costing) approach: how can ABC provide a methodological response to a CSR project? This question can be broken down into two main chapters:

• how CSR changes the context of the control system ;

• how the activity-based approach can be used to manage CSR.