You don’t have to be a half-empty type of guy to feel that clouds of doubt and uncertainty and the fear of the future are starting to descend all around us like a dense fog. There doesn’t seem to be any safe harbor for either our investments or our frayed nerves.

This is starting to feel a little bit like my visit to Argentina in the spring of 2002, right after the unthinkable happened. One of the most prosperous countries on the globe – a can’t-miss poster child for the glories of globalization that at one time fed much of the world – suddenly imploded. Read the rest of this entry »

In monitoring conversations with companies around the globe, those who are leading the corporate citizenship or sustainability space are understandably nervous about potential negative implications going ahead.

It was only a very few months ago that things could not have been rosier, and there finally seemed to be a significant breakthrough in the Sisyphean task of the past decade. Even the Economist in January admitted it might have been too harsh in viewing the corporate responsibility movement as a flash in the pan.

But how quickly things can change. A whole new meaning of climate change has been introduced into the public dialogue. Instead of a focus on the environment, a very different and much more powerful climate change conversation has been thrust upon us, one that may in fact be reshaping capitalism as we know it. Read the rest of this entry »