Has BP Ended the CSR Era?

I find myself agreeing with a column by Professor David Scheffer in today’s Financial Times, in which he argues that the BP Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico calls into question the corporate social responsibility (CSR) movement – with its reliance on voluntary principles and self-regulation. Having myself worked on an oil spill contingency plan for BP’s Schiehalion oil-field off Scotland in the 1990s, I have watched developments in the Gulf with mounting horror.

Found myself sitting in St James’s Square today, having arrived a few minutes early for a meeting with Robin Niblett of Chatham House – in his office that was previously Gladstone’s bedroom – and found myself reflecting on the number of times I have been into BP’s current HQ building in the Square while working on CSR and wider sustainability projects. Someone I talked to yesterday was wondering whether BP might follow ICI, another ‘national champion’ company I worked with through the 1980s and 1990s, down the slippery slope to extinction?