STWR - Share The World's Resources

Whilst many mining companies have signed up to ‘corporate social responsibility’ initiatives in the last decade, debate remains as to whether voluntarism is effective. Are legal mechanisms required to ensure local communities benefit from resource extraction? By Matt Kennard.

So-called ‘green consumers’ often seek to purchase what they perceive as eco-friendly products. But a company’s reputation for sustainability and the extent to which it has genuinely minimised its impact on the environment are not the same thing, finds an investigation by the New Scientist.

After eight years of investigation into allegations of corruption, BAE Systems has reached settlements with UK and US regulators totalling almost US$500 million. Is this outcome an encouraging move towards corporate accountability, or an affront to justice?

The toxic waste dumped by oil trading firm Trafigura represents one of the world's worst cases of chemical exposure. The story is also a metaphor for corporate capitalism in revealing that without regulation, it's all too easy for firms to protect profit and pass the risk onto the world's poor, argues George Monbiot.

As the role of mining companies in fuelling conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo becomes clear, politicians and security analysts are grappling with a crucial question: what is the appropriate method to deal with corporations that profit from conflict? By Deval Desai and Natalie Zerial.

Deforestation of the Amazon, whose trees absorb a large part of the world's pollution, is accelerating global warming. A growing body of evidence reveals the central role of certain multinational corporations in the destruction of the world’s largest rain forest, say Michael Smith and Adriana Brasileiro.

Following the recent wave of nationalisations and government-backed bank capitalisations, there is no reason to believe that a return of State-Owned Enterprises will be as inefficient and wasteful as those of the 1970s and 1980s, argue Aldo Musacchio and Francisco Flores-Macias.