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This article discusses the growing popularity of socially responsible investing and the difficulty of defining and screening companies for investments.

Consulting firms would do well to enact business ethics policies that are adhered to and managed

U of Chicago paper asks and answers the question: Can companies do well by doing good?

Tackling carbon exposure is more than good environmental stewardship; it could also protect a company's share price in the near term and create a long-term competitive advantage.

Peter Drucker analyzes industrialization's latest manifestations: an economic order where knowledge is the key resource; a social order where inequality based on knowledge is a major challenge; and a polity where government can't solve social and economic problems.

Pierre Omidyar invented Ebay and made billions of dollars. That turned out to be the easy part. Now he wants to give it away--and reinvent charity in the process.

Excellent article profiles University of North Carolina B-School professor Jim Johnson, who is trying to address pressing social problems.

Article highlights author-activist Naomi Klein, and her ideas on how branding is invading public-space (e.g. schools, community, etc.). According to Klein, "The companies that have most aggressively stalked people as consumers are the same ones that, as employers, have abandoned them...The branding economy has been built on the back of Third World labor." According to Klein, she is "interested in the way that utopian aspirations of branding are affecting our culture." Read more about these and other interesting ideas, like branding ideas vs. products, the brand boomerang effect, and the failure of social institutions.

NCOE looks at the latest development in the VC industry - Community Development Venture Capital (CDVC). CDVCs seek to tap the proven approach of traditional venture capital, but, for a different purpose: they aim to bring new investment to regions and sectors not participating in the current economic boom.

Editor's Note: see related article, "Community Development Venture Capital: A Double-Bottom Line Approach to Poverty Alleviation" at:
http://unepfi.net/venture/CVCbackground.pdf

Cruel World contributor and San Francisco State Marketing professor Dan Wardlow discusses the importance and impact of taking a socially responsible attitude toward business and marketing.

This December 2005 study sums up the existing research and statistics on consumers' attitudes and behaviors, and puts them into the context of the actual success of "green" products and sustainable lifestyles marketing strategies. Then, based on an in-depth analysis of various marketing strategies and campaigns from both small alternative companies and mainstream groups in industries such as clothing, cosmetics, detergents, food retail, automotive or water management, the study identifies the key factors of success and provides a toolbox to practitioners.

Sixteen leaders in business, philanthropy, and social activism offer their reflections.

In an article on Nov. 13, 2000, in the Financial Times' Mastering Management series, Wharton legal studies professor Thomas Donaldson looks at the increase in corporate ethics programs throughout the world. Which are the most effective? Do they indeed make a company ethical? Do they improve return on investment and/or customer satisfaction? And what are the consequences of not having a program?

Inspiring article about Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy, who runs several eye hospitals that restore eyesite to about 180,000 Indians each year, 70% of whome receive the service for free.

With donor-advised funds, you can avoid capital gains, get a huge income-tax break, and support your favorite cause.

Is it crazy for promising venture-backed start-ups to commit time and stock to nonprofits even before making money themselves? Former VC Gib Myers doesn't think so.

Meet the new breed of socially responsible CEOs. They share the goals of activist pioneers like Body Shop cofounder Anita Roddick and Ben & Jerry's Ben Cohen -- but are taking radically different approaches to activism.

Authors, from the Center for Corporate Community Relations at Boston College, argue that in addition to becoming the investment of choice, a company must become the supplier of choice, the employer of choice and a "neighbor of choice." Included is an 11-step best-practices blueprint for implementing the neighbor-of-choice strategy

Thoughtful managers sometimes face business problems that raise difficult questions. Sometimes these questions are matters of right versus right, not right versus wrong. There are three basic types of right-versus-right problems: those that raise questions about personal integrity and moral identity; conflicts between responsibilities for others and important personal values; and, perhaps the most challenging, those involving responsibilities that a company shares with other groups in society. This article takes a look at all three of these types through the lens of Edouard Sakiz, Chairman of Paris-based Roussel-Uclaf, developer of the controversial abortion pill RU 486.

Sure, if caring brings a profit. And businesses are discovering that it pays to be concerned about society.

Today, in the second era of global capitalism, there is a sharper focus on the social and environmental consequences of the operations of large corporations. Unlike the first era when the backlash against big corporations ushered in the development of governmental regulatory bodies, now a kind of ragtag group is springing up to influence corporate behaviour. But despite the positive successes of some crusades, Professor Ethan Kapstein explains that the ethical pursuit is still raising some red flags.

Note: Darwin Magazine is now dead. Some articles are moving to CIO. I will try to update the links when I have time...

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Buying environmentally friendly technology isn't just for the tree-huggers—it's for everyone who wants to make a profit.

Business visionary Stuart Hart thinks multinationals can help people rise out of poverty. And he has a business model to prove it.

Note: Older EBF articles are not currently online. I'm not sure if this is temporary or permanent. If you click you will be taken to the Archive.org site to find an archived copy.

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Frans Berkhout, Julia Hertin, Jérôme Carlens, Daniel Tyteca, Xander Olsthoorn, Marcus Wagner and Walter Wehrmeyer introduce the findings of an ambitious new cross-industry European research project. Among the conclusions they suggest that firms with Environmental Management Systems may not necessarily be greener than their rivals. In my opinion... Olivia Lister of Abbey National Group offers a finacial services perspective.

Note: you can read the article on the web page, but for a bigger font and to get the graphics referenced, read the .pdf version instead (link on the right side of page).

Note: Older EBF articles are not currently online. I'm not sure if this is temporary or permanent. If you click you will be taken to the Archive.org site to find an archived copy.

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Popular voices against international capitalism have become increasingly strident. The other side of the case – notably the positive social and economic impact of globalisation – deserves to be heard.

A new study finds exceedingly few, despite more calls from students for such training. Among the leaders: Harvard.

Pinstripes, the report referenced in the article has an MBA Depot entry at:
http://www.mbadepot.com/links/links.php?ID=481

"Especially in environmental matters, the link between socially responsible practices and shareholder returns is becoming evident. That's because a company's ability to deal successfully with environmental issues can be a credible measure of management quality, which is notoriously tricky to gauge, contends Frank Dixon, managing director with Innovest Strategic Value Advisors, New York. Management teams that excel in handling environmental issues, which come with a morass of technical, market, and regulatory problems, are likely to do a good job overall, says Dixon. In fact, Innovest's research has shown that stocks of companies with above-average environmental performance outperform their competitors by three to 25 percentage points annually. Dixon explains, 'The concept of fiduciary responsibility is beginning to change, to consider that environmental and social factors are relevant to the bottom line.'"

Note: Business 2.0 is now part of CNNmoney and some older articles are no longer available

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"'Consumers are expecting companies to act socially responsible,' [Carol] Cone says. 'Companies have to connect in a new way to consumers, in a way that is emotional, that is sustainable, that is credible.' Cone argues that companies need to provide a warm, more 'human' feeling. 'In order to connect with their stakeholders, employees, or consumers, they're going to have to embrace a cause or a series of causes,' she predicts . . . Cone feels that donating a percentage of revenue to charity is insufficient to impress consumers in the long run. 'That's not enough,' Cone insists. 'Because you know what? Every site is going to have that.' Instead, she says, companies need to go beyond short-term, sales-driven cause marketing to 'cause branding,' a strategic, stakeholder-based approach to integrating social issues into business strategy, brand equity, and organizational identity. 'Cause branding is creating a signature, ownable, sustainable program. It's much, much deeper than a quick click,' she says."

"Like other industrial economies, the United States is on the threshold of enormous demographic changes. With the aging of the baby boomers, nearly 30 percent of the workforce will be at or over the retirement age by 2030. Given that the rate of growth in the size of the workforce affects economic output (more work hours yield more output), a slow-growth workforce could profoundly affect economic well-being. The obvious way to offset the impact on the gross domestic product of a slow-growth workforce is to increase the productivity of each individual worker. Department of Labor studies find that a 1 percent increase in worker skills has the same effect on output as a 1 percent increase in the number of hours worked. Hence, the ability to raise the skills and education of every worker is not just a matter of social equity. It is an economic requirement for future growth--and an urgent one, given the generation time lag needed to develop skills and educate young workers."

Shocking as it may seem to most anti-globalists, market forces can help the environment. In fits and starts, they are already starting to.