Sustainability cannot easily be understood in modern society as a strategy for action that enables targeted steering of societal development. The demands associated with it overwhelm both the political steering capacities of modern society and the moral capacities of companies, which are often the focus of these demands. Through a systems-theoretical analysis, the work demonstrates how sustainability and the associated program of "Corporate Responsibility" manifest in different forms of governance and management within the economic system, while also producing self-regulating effects across society.