The establishment of stakeholder councils would no doubt go some way into forcing corporations to become more socially and environmentally responsible.

The proposal is sure to be criticised by the corporates though as being too unwieldy. It is doubtful the extra costs involved in the process would be absorbed - they would get passed onto someone and we all know who that would be - the hapless consumer, once again! Also, there would need to be extremely strong safeguards to prevent the system from being corrupted and captured by the spin merchants.

While an improvement, this proposal is still really only a cosmetic one. The real problem goes much deeper and lies within the system itself. There is and always will be a fundamental conflict of interest between satisfying shareholder demands and meeting the needs of workers, consumers and the environment. The system itself is flawed, and has only become further skewed towards the interests of the corporation after several decades of neo-liberal economics and corporate-led globalisation.

Despite Dr Shann's optimism, the goals of "shareholder value" and "social responsibility" are incompatible. No amount of gloss, spin or earnest argument will ever change that.

I can only imagin the improvements to Gunns management discipline and productivity if a bunch of greenies were brought in to "help".

I hate greenies.

To Bruce
“I can only imagin the improvements to Gunns management discipline and productivity if a bunch of greenies were brought in to "help".”

I don’t think the article in review is referring to Guns management.
It is referring to large companies, who make a lot of money. Who don’t treat their employees fairly, and pollute the environment.
No matter how much money you are making at work, your boss is getting richer off you!
Do you think your boss cares that his company is using 1000 000 plastic bags in a year? He might care about the financial cost, but he probably doesn’t care about the environmental impact.
What happens to the plastic bags? Most of them get thrown away, some of them end you in the waterways, and some of them make it to the ocean, where they are swallowed by whales and dolphins who mistake them for jellyfish.

According to the Federal Toxic Release Inventory, Kodak is New York's biggest polluter releasing 7,870,480 pounds of reportable chemicals to the environment in 1995. These chemicals cause miscarriages and birth defects in both employees and people living in the nearby area.
Would you want your family living near Kodak’s factory? What if your child was born with defects because you lived near the factory? Would you want someone to be held accountable? Of course you would. But if the governments not on your side, then who is?

I would like to thank Bronwyn for her comments. However, her assumption that the costs of establishing stakeholder forums would not provide off setting benefits is not supported by the evidence provided by Westpac in their verbal submission to the Joint Parliamentary Committee inquiry into social responsibility in November 2005.

Wespac were not obtaining as many benefits as I proposed or those proposed by Harvard Professors Michael Porter and Mark Kramer in their Harvard Business Review December 2006 article 'Strategy and Society: The Link Between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility'. The response by Porter and Kramer to my proposal to establish Stakeholder Forums is posted at http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/hbsp/hbr/articles/article.jsp?ml_subscriber=true&ml_action=get-article&ml_issueid=BR0704&articleID=LettersToEditor&pageNumber=1

Kind regards

Shann