Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a fundamentally normative construction. Itspeaks to what social responsibility should look like, who it should apply to, and howit should be demonstrated. By contrast, the analytic position of the corporate socialirresponsibility (CSI) discourse is evidence-based, and objects to the notion that com-panies can claim to be responsible while at the same time act irresponsibly. Thispaper supports a clear separation between (i) the critique of company performancewithin the dominant discursive construct of CSR and (ii) CSI as an evidence-basedapproach to reading and documenting corporate performance. A conceptually dis-tinct CSI discourse removes the need for researchers to disprove CSR rhetoric beforeengaging with responsibility problems. Rather than organising studies around CSRclaims and commitments, we suggest that researchers of global resource extractionput their energies towards capturing the form and function of‘organised irresponsi-bility’in locations where mining takes place.