We are in a perilous position. History may well record that we argued while Rome burnt. It’s a bit like the issue of whaling in that there is a great deal of huffing and puffing, accusations and counter accusations, some direct action, some moral indignation and an awful lot of hot air. [Ed: 'The big ask' campaign launched by Friends of the Earth back in 2008 (see below YouTube clip) remains a classic example of governments failing to act.]

The question is, will China end up responding faster and better than the democratic world? I have a hunch that it might. It is the world’s leading producer of renewable energy and has a rapidly growing nuclear energy industry. We saw at the Copenhagen summit its willingness to flex its growing political muscle. It has made itself an indispensable friend of many of the poorer nations on the planet – those hardest hit by climate change. In many ways it’s a classic pincer movement on the west.

But tackling climate change faster and better than the west might just be a very attractive option for China. It is unlikely to be driven primarily by moral obligations but it will happen. My worry is that the democratic world (which I prefer to live in by the way) is going to be left behind debating the issues.

So is democracy a good fit when the situation is so critical? Or is it getting in the way of progress? Is the state of the planet a likely cause for the rise of a kind of fascism? How far would you go? When the chips are down what value do you place on the ethical thing to do?

Chris Haddon is Creative Director at WellmarkPerspexa, one of the first creative agencies to design and produce sustainability reports for some of Australia’s leading corporate entities.

Do you wear green? What kind of green exactly? How does it make you feel? What message does it send to others?

It may not yet be the new black, but the colour (and the word) green has been latched on to with great enthusiasm by large corporations, small businesses and individuals alike. I’m not suggesting that this is necessarily a cynical ploy – not least because my own company uses green in its visual identity – but perhaps we should think a bit before being so ready to snuggle up with something green.

The colour green has many associations, and not all of them positive. Most of us are familiar with them and tend to think of the positive ones first. But green has associations that are financial (the once-coveted greenback), cultural (think of Ireland) and religious. Even sex gets a look in, for that matter. Of course, businesses that align themselves with the colour green are assuming that only the ‘good’ connotations will rub off on them. No doubt the Australian Greens will be relieved to learn that we don’t automatically think of sex when we hear their name, but we do live in a cynical world and anything is possible. The sex thing, by the way, has something to do with green M&Ms – go figure.

Of course, the feel-good connotation du jour is nature, in all its verdant wonder – presumably the European type, since Australia is largely brownish in colour. (And never mind that the natural world can be as ruthless and indiscriminate as any dictatorship.) There are other ways, too, in which we proclaim, like an antithetical Gordon Gekko, that ‘green is good’. Being blessed with a green thumb is a gift indeed, while some consider green to be a great healing colour: soothing and relaxing. And then there was that revered benefactor Robin Hood and his merry men, all dressed in green.

The other side of the coin is that we can be ‘green with envy’, ‘green around the gills’ or just plain ‘green’. ‘Greenwash’ has been damningly applied to many companies that are deemed to have played fast and loose with their environmental and social responsibilities.

On a more serious and profound note, the colour green is also very significant to Muslims and appears on many flags of Islamic nations – have a look at some of them on Wikipedia. So you would expect the colour green to have very different associations in those nations.

It was at a community sustainable-living event that I realised that the word green had begun to make me wary. So I think it is time for those interested in sustainability to move on from a reliance on the word. The climate-change sceptics are surely the ‘green’ ones now.

Chris Haddon is Creative Director at WellmarkPerspexa, one of the first creative agencies to design and produce sustainability reports for some of Australia’s leading corporate entities.

But let’s take this discussion beyond the undertakings of any individual company. What has happened to business’s understanding of civic involvement? Why do we find it so hard to give back, to get involved? What are we afraid of? Scope creep? Loss of brand control? Unpaid work? Reputational risk?

Many years ago, I was brought up in the Borders of Scotland. Several of the small towns dotted along the banks of the river Tweed had been built by the local woollen mill companies (a primitive form of social support although I’m not sure the mill owners made the link between supporting their employees and improving workplace performance as explicitly as we would today). As a child I attended (albeit very reluctantly) many company events, such as the annual Christmas party – all of the employees’ kids did, in fact. These were not initiatives that were mandated or formally enshrined in corporate policy, nor did they represent a reaction to employees’ demands. The company offered them because that was how business interacted with society. A different time with different values, sure, but perhaps a time when a company’s responsibilities to the communities within which it operated were naturally integrated with its business practices?

My point is that the triple bottom line is not a new idea. I am no expert on social capital theory and am certainly not suggesting that ‘way back then things were better’, but it does make sense that a stronger tradition of civic involvement would reduce the need to encourage businesses to behave responsibly. Many corporations are formalising their approach to CSR, but is this simply reflective of the fact that it no longer seems to be common sense?

One of the aims of the current web forum is to help businesses, our own included, make sense of CSR as it is defined today. A more fundamental aim is to generate genuine interest in the topic among the business community. As Audra Jones, a Foundation Representative at the Inter-American Foundation, writes: ‘For the private sector to develop participatory, sustainable investments in the community, it must have an enlightened self-interest in the process’. That is, in order to become more involved, the business community must first understand what can be gained from CSR – that adopting a CSR strategy in fact makes good business sense. Only then will businesses willingly and wholeheartedly commit to innovative and sustainable CSR programs. So, is CSR common sense to your organisation or an unwieldy, misunderstood and underutilised beast you can’t seem to get the knack of? If it’s the latter, tell us your concerns and we’ll explore them here together, month by month.

Chris Haddon is Creative Director at WellmarkPerspexa, one of the first full-service creative agencies to design and produce sustainability reports for some of Australia’s leading corporate entities.