CSR is a Con Job
from The Australian
Corporate social responsibility is a con job. If we needed reminding
about this absurd craze sweeping the business world, it came a few
weeks ago when AWB boss Andrew Lindberg resigned. His company had paid
$290 million in illegal kickbacks to Saddam Hussein’s tyrannical
regime in Iraq.
Yet, while those illegal bribes were being siphoned off to Iraq under
the UN oil for food program, Lindberg was being hailed by newspapers
hawking the latest Corporate Responsibility Index as one of the
leaders of corporate social responsibility in Australia. Why? Because
talk about corporate social responsibility fell off Lindberg’s lips as
easily as Australian wheat rolled into Iraq, lubricated by AWB bribes.