*What Is Corporate Sustainability?*

Based on the ontological and NCA analysis, it is acceptable to conclude that the concept of corporate sustainability is made of the Environmental, Social and Economic pillars and that corporate sustainability is a new business paradigm that requires attention to Environmental, Social and Economic dimensions to be able to provide for current and future generations. We claim, the presence of the identified constitutive pillars are not only necessary but also jointly sufficient on the basis that no other constitutive pillars were found in the analysis of the academic literature of the last 30+ years. Furthermore, the necessity of the identified conditions implies no substitutability between them. This means that, greater attention to one dimension cannot compensate for the absence another. Each one of the three determinants must be in place, as there is no additive causality that can compensate for the absence of a necessary cause. Necessary causality is expressed as a multiplicative phenomenon [5]. CS = Environment × Social × Economic. If one dimension goes to zero, CS becomes zero, and it is therefore absent.

Based on this finding, we can observe that when we look at the defining feature of corporate sustainability: the 'What'; and transcend from the 'How' and 'Why', the concept of corporate sustainability is not controversial, nor unclear, but rather well defined over the three pillars of Economic, Environmental and Social dimensions. Establishing this clarity over the concept of corporate sustainability is extremely important as the alleged absence of common understanding of what CS is, has been indicated as hindering its implementation and its measurability. Although the results may seem trivial, they address the continued claim of lack of clarity over the concept of corporate sustainability and call for researchers to find alignment towards what has already been achieved: convergence on 'What' is corporate sustainability and focus future research on what it still is a source of confusion and contention which is 'How' to integrate corporate sustainability and perhaps 'Why'. The "How" is particularly problematic, as it requires a paradigm shift of the way managers conduct and conceive business, of the way corporate players are organized and perform, of the way results are understood and reported, as well as analysis is conducted over the unresolved issues regarding trade-offs between its elements. Starting from the now clearly defined concept of corporate sustainability research should focus on 'How' to implement and how to measure it to facilitate its integration into business practices. Possible observation over the lack of novelty of the results, in fact, reinforces the argument that the convergence of the concept over its constitutive pillars is established.
