OPINION, Business Transparency
Sir, Your article "The corporate balancing act" (June 1) adds nothing to the body of knowledge on the subject of socially responsible companies. On the other hand, your recent coverage of the Nike, ExxonMobil and GE corporate responsibility reports seemed to indicate a struggle by corporations to shift their transparency efforts by using any term but corporate social responsibility.

Chandran Nair

As someone involved in the field for a decade, I would offer the view that analysing and differentiating between "operational" and "citizenship" responsibilities misses the point: truly open and visionary global companies should be reporting on externalities - the impacts of all activities on the corporate balance sheet.

That all businesses create externalities is well understood. The key questions are: where and how do these externalities shift, how much is society happy to carry that burden and who bears the burden and at what cost?

A fresh approach is perhaps needed to move us beyond the fussy debate that CSR has become, as exemplified in your article, and to allow companies the chance to shed accusations of "green-wash".

A credible report is needed in which companies would highlight the balancing act, specific consumer sensitivities and the dilemma of double standards. They would talk about offloaded impacts they would like to see resolved, laws they opposed, agreements they have not honoured, lobbyists they engaged, political funds sponsored to obtain friendly regulations and the actions they might take to appease and influence people.

As these activities are conducted legally there should be no reason to shy away from disclosure. That would go far towards building the trust your article emphasised. The report might be called the corporate externalities report, or simply the Core report.

Businesses are demanding transparency from government and others, but they can also lead the way.

Chandran Nair,
Chief executive,
Global Institute For Tomorrow,
Hong Kong

Chandran Nair is founder and chief executive of the Global Institute For Tomorrow.
www.globalinstitutefortomorrow.org/