Globalization and the good corporation: Whither socially responsible investment?

The strategy and experience of the Council for Socially Responsible Investment in New Zealand promoting socially and environmentally responsible investment (SRI) is described and discussed. Issues the Council has faced included public accessibility to good information, definitions of SRI, standards for good corporate responsibility, and climate change. Internationally there are no successful examples of strategic models used by government, business or civil society to make SRI mainstream by voluntary means. Research indicates that SRI internationally is in single percentage figures only. This is a particularly acute problem if the worst scenarios of climate change (for example) are to be avoided: a rapid shift (within perhaps, eight years) of public and private investment into a SRI framework is required. If the world is to avoid dangerous global warming, it is very unlikely that the strategy of a voluntary shift to an international SRI economy will achieve this, and even with a shift to a regulated economy the chances are not good.