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The premise of this article seems to be that if VW didn't spend so much time and money on CSR, that their emissions cheating would have been prevented. That seems rather far fetched to me. It's not really clear how one would have any impact on the other.

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The point of the article is that CSR is simply a marketing expense to a corporation and has no relation to the actual social value of the corporation.

Recognizing that is the first step toward actually making corporations socially responsible by setting limits on them from the outside.

Outside limits already exist. The entire scandal is that they cheated their way past those limits.

I mean, you're right that CSR is basically a marketing expense, but I still don't see how getting rid of it would fix anything here.

The connection would be that with CSR, VW hhas a lot to love up to. Without those promises, they might not have felt a need to push the buttons they did.

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