Gay marriage wouldn’t have passed in the Washington state Legislature this year without Gov. Chris Gregoire’s decision to reverse course and push for it. Legislators’ personal pleas to colleagues, as epitomized by Republican Rep. Maureen Walsh’s passionate floor speech about her desire to throw her daughter a wedding someday, also played [...]

A group of US investment institutions have filed shareholder resolutions at 40 companies calling on them to report on their spending on direct lobbying and lobbying via trade associations. The group wants greater transparency on how companies influence regulation and law-making. Backers of the initiative include investors such as the $134bn (€104bn) [...]

It is rare for two global crises to occur in such quick succession.  The banking and financial services industry, once heralded for its social responsibility and support of community issues, is under fire for seriously mishandling their financial responsibilities of late.  On the oil industry front, BP, once the darling of progressives for their “Beyond [...]

Wall Street tactics akin to the ones that fostered subprime mortgages in America have worsened the financial crisis shaking Greece and undermining the euro  by enabling European governments to hide their mounting debts. As worries over Greece rattle world markets, records and interviews show that with Wall Street’s help, the nation engaged in a decade-long [...]

Today wasn’t the best day for an investment bank to seek coverage of a big corporate social responsibility initiative. But Lehman’s collapse didn’t stop Goldman Sachs from going ahead with the long-planned announcement of new partners for its “10,000 Women” scheme, which aims to give business and management training to women in less-developed countries. Image [...]

Gordon Brown plans to harness at least 20 of the world’s biggest multinational companies, including Google and Vodafone, to tackle a “development emergency” in the world’s poorest countries and put the international community back on course to achieve seven UN development goals by 2015. As a UN report released today shows limited progress in hitting [...]

The FairPensions’ Fund Manager Transparency and Engagement Survey reveals that 75% of fund managers analysed do not publicly disclose any policies relating to environmental and social issues. This is despite the fact that many of the companies analysed have transparent corporateresponsibility policies in place. The survey covered the top twenty fund managers in the UK, [...]