I have spent more years than I care to remember examining the approaches different companies all over the world take to corporate social responsibility (CSR). And I have come to the view that most corporations don't have a clue what CSR means, or indeed if it's relevant.

Sifting through annual reports and listening to business leaders talking about it reminds me of the Hindu story of the blind men trying to describe an elephant - it depends which part you grab. For some, it's about compliance and philanthropy; for others it's sustainability. Some talk about the company's impact on society and its relationships with the community; others put it in a broader strategic framework.

What's badly needed is a framework. Here is mine, put together through a check list of 10 basic rules. The first five set out what CSR is, and the next five define how the organisation should deal with it to make it more than lip-service and public relations window-dressing

CSR takes in five areas:

1. Corporate governance and accountability: the company is accountable to shareholders, government, employees, customers and community. The hard part: setting targets that would make it accountable to all these stakeholders.

2. Sustainability and environment: this takes in a huge area including greenhouse gas emissions, water, paper, degradation, supply chain impact, green investment, salinity and agricultural practices and cultural heritage.

3. Workforce: this covers areas like fair pay and conditions, women and minorities in management roles, maternity leave and re-entry, people with disabilities, mature aged workers, disadvantaged youth, long term unemployed and indigenous communities. It also includes occupational health and safety, training and work-life balance.

4. Human rights: takes in supply chain issues, fair trading, alliances and partnerships with certain governments and the impact of products.

5. Community involvement: this covers all sorts of areas including meaningful volunteering programs, staff lending their skills to the boards of non-profit organisations and philanthropy.

For the organisation, there are five key issues that need to be addressed. If they fail to do all of these, it becomes a meaningless exercise.

1. Companies need to demonstrate CSR as a value proposition to the board.

2. They need to find ways of getting support from shareholders and consumers.

3. It is absolutely critical for the organisation to develop CSR audit tools so that they can place a dollar value and conduct a cost-benefit analysis of all their CSR expenditure.

4. They need to approach it in a business-like way. Good CSR should be good business.

5. The CSR programs need to be run at a senior level. There is no point fobbing it off on to the corporate affairs or marketing departments because all that does is create silos and prevent any impact on the corporate culture.