NEWS SUMMARY - 11/21-11/27

In recent CSR news...

• Milton Friedman' s death caused columnists everywhere to ponder his famous statement that "The Business of Business is Business" - and what Friedman himself really meant by that. The Wall Street Journal ("Milton Friedman Was Right" 11/24/06), The Age ("The Blurred Lines of Being Responsible" 11/22/06) and WorldChanging (Milton Friedman and the Social Responsibility of Business 11/18/06) are just some of the articles that touch on this theme.
• As the holiday shopping season gets underway, sustainable gift ideas are all the rage. For example: the Wall Street Journal' s "Rudolph the Recycled Reindeer" (11/24/06).
  
• Some big companies are battling reputational crisis, as " Coke Joins the Battle for the Brand" (Financial Times 11/21/06), Johnson & Johnson deals with allegations that its stents are " Dangerous Devices" (Forbes 11/27/06), and Nike fires Pakistani soccer-ball manufacturers for sub-contracting to at-home workers who cannot be adequately monitored ("Nike Says Monitoring System Working," Associated Press 11/21/06).
• In the latest instance of an issue made more complicated by the Internet, advertising bans on smoking don' t do much good if tobacco firms have easy and free access to millions of teens via YouTube, where videos of sexy, smoking teens are possibly being posted by tobacco manufacturers to recruit the next generation of smokers. (See " Whiff of Tobacco Firms on Net" )
• While the previous decade saw the Internet spur the rise and fall of fortunes, a Times (UK) columnist and managing principal of Green Order argues that this decade will see the environment change everything. He predicts that the "next Bill Gates" will be an environmental entrepreneur, because solving the climate change challenge is the greatest economic opportunity of our time. (See " Coming Soon: a Green Bill Gates" )