By David Williamson, Western Daily Mail

August 12, 2005

ONE of the leading sceptics of Corporate Social Responsibility is Clive Crook of The Economist.

In an interview earlier this year, he said, "From an ethical point of view, a lot of corporate social responsibility is really just good management.

"Anything that advances the interest of a company, the company should be doing anyway.

"There shouldn't be any applause or special credit for this."

He argues that CSR is a response to the demands of charities and non-governmental organisations that puts "a gloss on capitalism" and can distract businesses from making needed reforms.

Mr Crook's claim that those outside the business community who demanded CSR policies are disappointed with the results appears to be true in many cases.

Groups such as Core - an alliance of more than 100 groups - demands legislation to make firms' CSR policies "transparent and accountable".

Eleanor White, programme director of Amnesty International Wales, and a member of Core Cymru, said, "The framework of international law that governs companies leaves a lot to be desired... Businesses at the moment are purely accountable to shareholders."

Her organisation wants the United Nations - an organisation set-up to manage affairs between nation states but which operates in an age when many of the world's biggest economic entities are multinational companies - to be able to hold businesses to account.

Among the human rights disasters it claims companies have been associated with is the enslavement of child workers through debt bondage in India and assassination of trade unionists in Colombia.