**8. Discussion and conclusion**

Corporate social responsibility is not a choice. All economic value ever created by any firm has been generated through its stakeholders. These stakeholders – people – all have individual preferences and values. These stakeholders, including customers, employees, investors and suppliers, only choose to work with any firm because that firm creates value for them or makes their life better. When enormous shocks to the social landscape occur, such as Covid-19, Black Lives Matter or MeToo, every firm is forced to rethink how it engages with stakeholders and how it will create value.

Some business leaders will view these shocks as opportunities to capitalize and extract rents. This is very dangerous; these windows of opportunity will soon close. Business leaders need to focus on long-term strategy and not just short-term opportunity in order to survive, thrive and maximize value. Peloton is the perfect example of a company struggling to see beyond the short-term Covid-19 opportunity; Tesla is an example of a company incorporating the confluence of environmental, social and governance issues into its long-term strategy.

In this chapter, we have offered practical solutions for business leaders to use to develop such a long-term strategy. We have provided six rules that all leaders should follow move beyond short-term opportunities towards long-term social
