In an essay written by George Carpenter and Peter White, both executives for P&G at the time of the article’s February 2004 publication in Corporate Environmental Strategy: International Journal for Sustainable Business, the authors say that, when it comes to corporate social responsibility, corporations have been viewed as primarily “the problem,” Motely Fool reports (via SustainablLifeMedia).

Because of this, the mindset of corporate social responsibility initiatives is to find ways to be “less bad.”  This approach sends a negative message and doesn’t support a strong, sustainable business model.

According to Carpenter and White, “When you focus only on being ‘less bad,’ by definition you can never be ‘good.'”