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The management literature has given relatively little attention to companies' embeddedness in social-ecological systems and the potential for companies to have positive environmental impacts. Based on two in-depth case studies of innovative corporate initiatives in South Africa, we define "systemic engagement" as strategically committed efforts to enhance social-ecological resilience, and we identify six dimensions and 15 elements that characterise systemic engagement as a distinct category of environmental responsiveness. Firms' pre-existing strategic commitments to geographically specific resources, such as suppliers or customers, motivate and facilitate such engagement because they make the case study companies vulnerable to social-ecological risks and also give them influence and ecological sensemaking capabilities. A further motivating factor is limited statehood, which gives rise to the strategic dilemma of either replacing or engaging the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]