The European Corporate Sustainability Framework distinguishes between four basic interpretations of Corporate Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility (CS-R). These distinctions are based on the work of Prof. Graves (1974). The four basic interpretations relate to degrees of complexity or levels of existence, as we can learn form the quality management tradition and the concept of phasewise development.

The interpretation of Corporate Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility on the level of Synergy is a result of systemic or synergistic thinking. Organizations are innovation-driven. CS-R means searching for functional solutions, increasing the total sum of the material, commercial, socialization and intellectual assets of the organization and of others, for the long term. The motivation for CS-R is that they are responsible both for the behavior of themselves and for the behavior of others, as sustainability cannot be explained in cause and effect relations. Therefore organizations are searching for methods of translating technical solutions into new forms of thinking about their way of organizing and living together. (For instance the Marine Stewardship Council initiative, concept of cars running on hydro-oxygen with the total infrastructure surrounding it, and preserving nature by abandoning the presumption that man can control it).