Every business is based on interest groups and their expectations. Social responsibility is appropriate to link business to the interests of interest groups. As the concept of sustainable development seeks to resolve the conflict between the desirable and undesirable impacts of economic activities at the global level, social responsibility addresses this conflict at the level of business goals and strategies. Social responsibility is therefore an essential tool of SCP, from which the objectives of other instruments can also be derived.

An effective management system is essential to realize goals and strategies in practice. Companies in this area are increasingly using integrated management systems. As the environmental management system is the most widespread environmental management system (EMS) according to ISO 14001 standard. The European Environmental Management Standard EMAS extends the EMS requirements primarily to external reporting (using a verified public environmental performance statement).

Specific changes take place at the level of products and production processes and related material and energy flows. The oldest voluntary approach used at the process level is cleaner production (CP), which focuses primarily on identifying and implementing eco-efficient innovations, which leads to waste minimization and pollution prevention. An energy audit is a widespread tool for improving energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy sources.

Today, the most significant environmental and social impacts are not linked to production processes, but to products and their life cycle. Ecodesign focuses on the entire life cycle of products and services. Ecodesign is a broad concept that uses a number of sub-tools, such as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), which focuses on the impact assessment phase. LCA uses Type III Environmental Labeling (EPD) for business to business communication.