Myth of the Danaids - Why Positive Actions Can’t Fill a Leaking Barrel

In Greek mythology, the Danaids were condemned to an endless punishment: to fill a bottomless barrel with water — a task that could never be completed. This ancient story offers a striking modern lesson for sustainability.

Many companies today are caught in the same trap. They tirelessly try to fill the barrel by multiplying well-intentioned but random positive initiatives, planting a tree, holding a wellness day, or sponsoring causes, while their core business still generates pollution, inequality, or corruption.

From Compliance to Consciousness

For decades, corporate responsibility, or CSR, was defined by a simple creed: “The business of business is business.” As long as companies respected the law and delivered profits, they were considered responsible. Their duty was owed to shareholders, rather than society.

But this paradigm is shifting. In a globalised economy with complex supply chains and interdependent business relations, compliance is no longer the end of responsibility, it’s the beginning.

Early generations of CSR defined themselves by a hierarchy of duties: profit first, legality second, ethics third, generosity last. Carroll’s Pyramid (1979) captured this mindset, progressive for its time, but limited now. Today, responsible business can no longer be measured by revenue, compliance, or charity alone, but by the ability to understand and manage the real impacts it creates

Do No Harm

Corporate responsibility is first and foremost a voluntary decision and moral commitment, not an imposed obligation. Whether you call it moral behaviour, the categorical imperative, or simply Google’s ‘don’t be evil’, the ethical basis of responsible business is simple: do no harm. Any contribution beyond this, creating additional benefits for people or the environment, may be valuable, but must never distract from addressing the company’s own negative impacts. Confusing the two is what fuels greenwashing: showcasing marginal positives while ignoring structural harm.

Generosity can complement responsibility, but it cannot replace it. Philanthropy becomes meaningful only when it strengthens, rather than distracts from, the duty to manage their own impacts first. CSR is not philanthropy. The objective is not to give more; it is to damage less — a shift from doing things right to doing the right things. The challenge is to identify what is right, and for whom.

Understanding Impact

Every company transforms inputs into products and services that represent value for customers. Unfortunately, these processes may also generate unwanted by-products, or negative externalities, that destroy value for others. These adverse effects can be environmental (CO₂ emissions, polluted water, biodiversity loss), social (stress, inequality, unsafe work), or societal (human rights, monopolies, tax avoidance).

Understanding these impacts means understanding responsibility: recognising how an organisation’s activities affect the different forms of capital it depends on. Natural capital includes the resources, ecosystems, and biodiversity that sustain life. Social capital encompasses employees, customers, communities, and the trust that binds them. Economic capital covers financial, productive, and infrastructural assets that ensure operational viability.

Whether we call them the five capitals, the five Ps (People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace, Partnerships), or the 17 SDGs, the principle is the same: companies must understand how their activities impact these stocks of value, positively or negatively. These capitals constantly interact between the company and its ecosystem. Managing these flows wisely means preserving the relevant stocks — in the company’s own interest.

Stakeholders and the Systemic View

Where there are impacts, there are people impacted: the stakeholders. They are influenced by a company’s actions and decisions, but also influence them in return. Think of consumers concerned by the recall of Lotus waffles, local residents opposing the construction of a Luxembourg data-centre, or workers better protected thanks to Vision Zero’s safety recommendations.

Such examples show that modern companies operate as systems of interdependent actors, where every decision triggers reactions across the network. An enterprise is not an isolated unit but a web of relationships that together create and sustain value. What would Losch be without well-trained employees, Cactus without its trusted regional suppliers, or Apple without its loyal users?

Leading a business today means managing relationships, not just resources. Effective stakeholder management is therefore the most powerful tool to govern interconnected actors, stabilise the value chain, and maintain the equilibrium of the system. Impacts flow both ways, from enterprise to society and from society back to the enterprise, through continuous feedback loops of risks and opportunities.

Managing Negative Impacts

According to ISO 26000, responsible business means recognising, reducing, neutralising, or repairing negative impacts. CSR starts with knowing what truly matters. This is the essence of materiality: identifying the issues most significant to both the organisation and its stakeholders. It is also the basis of effective risk management, because what is material for society today often becomes a business risk tomorrow.

The hierarchy of responsibility is clear : Avoid. Reduce. Mitigate. Remedy. Compensate.

Companies must first avoid harm, as demonstrated by Lamesch’s prevention of uncontrolled landfilling, or Fritz Cola’s substitution of chemical additives with natural ingredients. Substitution means replacing a harmful product, process, or material with a safer or more sustainable alternative.

Where harm cannot be avoided, they must reduce their footprint, as shown by Bamolux improving its work environment to cut stress or Bofferding mitigating its water use by recycling 70%. Mitigation means taking action to reduce the severity, likelihood, or impact of a negative effect once it cannot be fully avoided.

When damage occurs, they must remedy it, as illustrated by Aviva Investors Luxembourg updating its prospectuses to correct disclosure issues.

Finally, they should compensate only what cannot be restored, like Luxair or Cargolux offsetting unavoidable emissions through certified carbon credits, creating an equivalent positive effect elsewhere. Compensation is a last resort, not a shortcut.

But let’s be clear: planting trees will not compensate for toxic discharges, education programmes cannot erase unsafe working conditions, and one disease cannot be cured with another’s medicine. True responsibility seeks substitution before compensation — because you can’t fix a system you keep damaging. Meanwhile, fossil-fuel subsidies still exceed USD 3 trillion annually, and plastic production continues to outpace recycling. True sustainability is not about adding more water; it’s about fixing the barrel.

Towards Positive Impacts

Avoiding harm remains essential, but it is no longer sufficient. Corporate responsibility is evolving from damage control to value creation. Today’s leading organisations understand that trust, innovation, and resilience emerge when sustainability is embedded in strategy, not added as an accessory.

CSR is not about generosity; it is about aligning how a company creates value, while valuing the capitals it depends on. This principle is illustrated by KPMG Luxembourg’s foundation work, Samsonite’s successful shift toward circular product design, or ProAktif’s reintegration of people distanced from the labour market. When strategy, purpose, and impact converge, doing good and doing well move in the same direction.

Conversely, random or symbolic CSR initiatives are costly distractions: smoke-and-mirror activism that pleases everyone and convinces no one. Sponsoring a board member’s local sports club, a small firm signing a global charter it can’t apply, or a carmaker pledging for animal welfare while neglecting its carbon footprint adds little strategic value. This kind of confetti-CSR scatters good intentions without addressing any real issue.

Strategic Common Sense

The first strategic imperative is simple: know your context. A company does not operate in isolation; its performance depends on the health of the systems that sustain it. Preserving natural, social, and economic capitals is therefore enlightened self-interest as much as ethics. Maintaining durable stakeholder relations offers real-time strategic insight: every interaction signals expectations and vulnerabilities. A responsible leader listens, engages, and co-creates value; transforming responsibility into strategic intelligence.

Creating positive value is not philanthropy, but strategic decision-making. It reflects a CSR 2.0 approach focused on preserving and developing the resources the company’s future depends on. Identifying those critical assets and interdependencies is the basis of materiality analysis. Therefore, true strategic responsibility means concentrating on value preservation, risk management, and material sustainability issues. Examples include mission-driven initiatives such as Ramborn’s preservation of 960 hectares of heritage orchards; circular approaches including Grosbusch’s shift to reusable crates and recyclable packaging; and catalytic transformations such as ArcelorMittal Luxembourg’s partnership with its electricity provider to enable low-carbon EAF steel production.

The essence of strategy is choice. Trying to do everything for everyone often achieves nothing for anyone. A single, well-chosen €1000 partnership can create more impact than scattering €10 across a hundred causes. Those who fail to focus their scarce resources on material ESG issues, miss key opportunities : enhanced trust and reputation, stronger employee engagement, co-created innovation capacity… Sustainability is not a constraint but a catalyst for innovation, performance, and competitiveness.

From Governance to Responsible Leadership

Responsible companies build governance and leadership systems able to manage sustainability and impact proactively. We are moving beyond traditional governance centred on control, compliance, and short-term financials toward a new era of responsible leadership, grounded in trust, transparency, and shared value.

Leadership today is measured by coexistence, collaboration and trust; the ability to align corporate goals with societal needs and to create value with people, not merely through them. Responsible leaders embody ethics, empathy, and purpose, engaging stakeholders, driving sustainability, and turning intent into lasting impact.

Creating Shared Value

A company is not sustainable because it earns profit, but because it creates and preserves value for the stakeholders and ecosystems that make profit possible. Ultimately, responsibility is measured not by promises, but by the integrity of decisions, the management of impacts, and the value created for the business, the people, and the planet.

True leadership aligns meaning with performance, the individual with the collective, and enterprise with society. It is not about amplifying positive stories, but managing real consequences across the entire value chain. In the end, corporate responsibility is the moral duty to do no harm, while positive impact is a strategic decision to create meaningful shared value for the company and its stakeholders.

The lesson comes full circle: you cannot fill a leaking barrel. You cannot repair a system you keep damaging.

By Lidia N. Rahal, Head of ESG Reporting & Advisor @ 3A Advisory and Norman J. Fisch, CEO & Advisor @ 3A Advisory

This article was published in Delano : Corporate responsibility is NOT about positive impacts | Delano News