Aim and method: This study aims to investigate the implementation of CSR activities to attain sustainability in SMEs by focusing on the pharmaceutical industry in Sweden.To achieve the aim of this study, qualitative method has been used to conduct multiple case study of 10 SMEs in the pharmaceutical industry in Sweden.

Result and conclusion: This study has shown that the CSR activities in the studied pharmaceutical SMEs are at the primary stage as most of them currently go through research and development. There is no balance between three aspects of the CSR(social, environmental and economic), and CSR activities could not be fully implemented to maintain holistic sustainability. Ethics seems to have a high impact on CSR activities in the pharmaceutical sector, especially due to its involvement in the betterment of lives all over the world. Thus, in a way, this industry is ethically responsible for providing affordable treatments.

Contribution: The present study contributes to the literature by investigating the CSR activities in the Swedish pharmaceutical SMEs and their ability to attain sustainability in terms of employment, society, revenues and supporting the economy. A new framework, which consists of three pillars namely ethical, environmental and social, could be used to assess the CSR activities in order to achieve sustainability in SMEs. In this framework, ethics would be a pillar of the CSR instead of the economic one.