Corporate social responsibility (CSR), sustainable development (SD) and ESG as markers of social development of the state and business

Today’s consumers and investors have more expectations from businesses than ever before. In addition to making a profit within the law and paying taxes, a company must also implement sustainable development (SD) practices such as CSR (corporate social responsibility) and ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance). Businesses operate in communities that directly or indirectly impact their transactions. Companies interact with different sectors in the wider community, and government is part of this. Thus, from a corporate social responsibility or CSR perspective, many people believe that the public sector should also play a role in business activities. The study compares popular modern terms that are markers of a social state: corporate social responsibility, sustainable development, ESG concept, and identifies the similarities and differences between these categories and their interrelationships. An in-depth analysis of the implementation of ESG principles and social responsibility of Russian companies was also carried out using all the best possible methods of key rating agencies. The theoretical and methodological basis of the study was the works of leading scientists in the field of corporate social responsibility (CSR), ESG, sustainable development (SD), regulatory and methodological materials, publications in periodicals on assessing the social responsibility of companies, ESG ranking. In the process of work, methods of system analysis, induction, deduction, the method of analogies, observation, comparison, grouping, synthesis, modeling of the processes under study, comparison and comparison were used. These methods allow us to examine the processes and phenomena being studied in development, identify contradictions, and correlate essential characteristics and forms of their manifestation.