I am in London on the last day of my UK trip and was reading The Times on the way into the office today.  I don’t know if it just me, but again I find myself seeing corporate responsibility everywhere. I have outlined six big stories below just from today’s paper alone.  But somewhat worryingly, none of them are in the business section.  While I think corporate responsibility and sustainability have made it into the mainstream I find myself wondering why they do not seem to have made it into the business section.  Does that mean they haven’t made it into the investors mindset ?

Here are the stories;

Front cover above the fold –  The alleged relationship between Sir Fred Goodwin and a senior executive at Royal Bank of Scotland, is discussed within the context of both the company’s ethical standards for employees and the performance of the bank. This is presented in the paper’s editorial (page 1) as an example of the dilemma between deserved privacy and necessary public scrutiny.

Front cover below the fold – Although not specifically about a corporation, the contrast between the French and US approach to privacy in the alleged rape by Dominique Strauss-Kahn is another illustration of the pros and cons of privacy. On the one hand there are now accusations of a long history of similar incidents, on the other hand, a person who has not been found guilty has had his ambitions for top public office dashed.

Both situations are also in my view part of continuing gender balance issues  in the board room that were covered in The Times (or maybe it was The Evening Standard) that I was reading on the train last night.

Pages 14/15 – The Glencore case seems like it will make a new case study on how not to do corporate responsibility. The whole situation involves substantive issues on pollution, community engagement, doing business in developing nations,  PR and sustainability.  The two page spread talks about ‘unacceptable capitalism’.  And the whole piece is put within the context of executive remuneration.   This is bad for the sector and for the CR field. I have no doubt that some of the negative response will leak over to companies in the sector who are responsible, and to the practice of CR overall.

Page 23 – A valuable analysis of the pros and cons of foreign aid (in this case in a questionable comparison with defense spending) leads into a complimentary commentary on how Bill Gates quantifies the value of Gate’s Foundation’s programs.   It got me to thinking about the comparable benefits of spending a corporate dollar on a sustainable for-profit product development, versus a company run community investment program (such as BT’s MyDonate), versus simply giving it to a charity.

Page 35 – a straightforward report about deforestation in Brazil

Page 57 – Under the heading “Is competition good for the NHS” a discussion that absolutely parallels the US debate on healthcare. The Pro and Con arguments debate whether or not a market driven system can best reflect overall patient needs.

Page 37 – Business Section – Nothing

Encouraged to see CR and related issues covered in so many forms.  I find myself disappointed none of it makes it into the business section.