DCSBN Responds to Anti-CSR Letter in the Wall Street Journal

The original letter:

Social Responsibility Isn't CEOs' Business
Your Jan. 16 editorial "Beyond PR at BP" was correct to call attention to the folly of BP's Beyond Petroleum advertising campaign that distracted management from its core business responsibility: finding, drilling and processing oil in a safe and efficient
manner. However, the editorial failed to recognize BP's public relations effort
as part of the larger corporate social responsibility (CSR) movement that plagues big business. CEOs are under pressure to expand their companies' responsibilities beyond making money for its shareholders.

BP's CSR detour was a disaster for its shareholders, workers, the environment and Lord Browne himself. BP's CSR experience illustrates that like oil and water, CSR and business profitability don't mix.
Tom Borelli, Ph.D.
Free Enterprise Action Fund
Eastchester, N.Y.

DCSBN's Response (submitted for publication on January 18, 2007):

Dr. Borelli makes a common but false assumption that social responsibility is not in the shareholder's best interest when he writes 'Social Responsibility Isn't CEOs' Business' (January 18, 2007).

The business of business is business, as Milton Friedman famously said. Holding BP in contempt for pursuing alternative energy sources fails to recognize that any energy company that plans to be in business - and hence be around to provide a return to its shareholders over the long term - must accept the challenge of meeting the energy needs of the future. If the corporate scandals at Enron, Worldcom,
etc. have demonstrated nothing else, they have shown the folly of measuring success only on the basis of quarterly stock performance. I am sure that many investors, (not to mention former employees and customers of those companies) would have preferred management had taken a more responsible approach. And that is the CEO's responsibility and duty.

John FriedmanWashington DC Sustainable Business
Networkemail: JohnF@dcsbn.org