just watched a movie called A closer walk which I encourage everyone to watch; one of the many very good points is that HIV/AIDs and our failure to stop it spreading reflects about our society in general. Of course every society is different between regions, countries, cities etc; but there are some interesting thoughts that came into my mind.

First I started thinking about social stigmas -related to sex, related to old or disabled people, related to people of other races and sexes. And the obvious truth that we start with a negative stigma of almost anything different or anything we do not understand, but once we come into close contact with it and reach across the divide to make a personal connection, then we can lose the stigma. But the problem is if we think this way then we start with holding stigmas towards so many people and have to work to overcome them -rather than the opposite. I understand the evolutionary perspective of having to earn trust and fear people or things that are different or we do not understand for own survival; but today we come into contqact with so many people and things that are different: much more than in the past; and we effect so many more people that are so different to us, without even knowing it!

How can we change these stigmas? Are we as humans, humane people? It seems not. Despite knowledge and awareness we often do nothing, for so many reasons -some simple and some complex. The more reasons there are, the more solutions there are -which makes it harder to solve on one hand, but also offers more opportunities for us to do something -just pick one small solution that fits our personal situation. Despite evident visibility on our own streets of people less fortunate, we as humans don't seem to do anything about it. It's not often about desire, or about means, or ability (though all often are missing); but more generally about behaviour.

What does it take for society to change? To take responsibility for itself? I mean, our society is killing itself in so many ways... Yes, there are 'bigger picture' ideas: of there being more people creating more diseases killing more people, of poverty being inevitable no matter what and so on.. but what strikes me, is that we COULD actually do something about it.. it is not just out of our hands!

Now for a problem I do not have an answer for- if in some countries 40% people have HIV/AIDs and whole families and friendship networks are dying from it; why is HIV/AIDs becoming a bigger problem? Surely everyone is affected by it; surely they can see it, see the effects and will want to stop it -for their own, selfish sake -but this is not happening. If there are cultural reasons for this (man involving the role of women in society) then how come the culture does not change? Yes, we need to understand different cultures, respect them etc. But there is no point in preserving a culture if it is not fit for the modern society.. if by preserving a culture it wipes its own people out. They need to change their culture to survive (and not necessarily change to a certain or specific culture; but make some kind of change)!

Finally a point was made by the Director of the movie, that there are somethings that are fundamental rights and others that are a privilege: The rich may have more priviledges than the poor, but we should not have more rights.

I am a convert! -after the BAWB Global Forum in Cleveland, I've been researching more and more about this so-called 'Bottom of the Pyramid' concept -that it is in business's own interest to help society, and the best way to do so is, through doing more business. Sometimes known as 'doing business with the poor', this is not necessarily a new concept: indeed the poor have been integrated into (and benefited) from global supply chains for a while -and will continue to do so.

The 'new' trend (by that I mean a trend that only recently academic studies have discovered is happening and started researching, though i am sure inspired individuals and business throughout time has been involved in this trend for centuries) is basically about how important innovation and entrepreneurship is to doing business with the poor -and therefore I am convinced that entrepreneurs have been doing this for years. It's great that Multinationals are getting more involved, since they can scale-up and mainstream.

The fundamental learning point is very much about understanding the market. The market might for your business yet, but if you can provide a useful service, the market will buy it. The product or service does not necessarily have to benefit society per se; but by creating a successful product or service, it will provide some benefit in its use and in knock-on wealth creation (jobs, distribution etc). There is 1 caveat though, in that these products or services should not be harmful. Writing this, it is clear that the best example of BOP is the illegal drugs market -where there are incredible innovations in supply chain, distribution, marketing and so on -and huge buyers of poor people some how become buyers (unfortunately often through crime).

Now companies are listening more, engaging more and experimenting more: another example of CSR just being good business -a logical evolution of what had been happening previously. Often serving this market requires a new product or service, and often it requires rethinking the associated business functions entirely. Thus businesses need to encourage more entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship, give their employees free-rain, flexibility, and take a long-term approach to profit making. Society needs to encourage innovation more; it needs to encourage entrepreneurship in its educational systems, in its economic frameworks, in its recognition and status socially and so on. Much more needs to be done about this urgently. We need more leaders with more ideas to solve the many challenges we face.

After a recent conference on Supply Chain Management I came to realise a few things. The most important is how great a lot of the stuff Brands are doing: they are (for various reasons) demonstrating fantastic leadership and I believe had made a big difference in the last 10+ years. There are of course multiple problems still to contend with; especially considering what they are doing is not driven my much local pressure; and most of what they are doing should, to some extent, be done by the government (enforcing Health and Safety laws, working hours laws etc).

There are some fantastic pilots taking place that really bring 'CSR' to local managers in factories and engage with all stakeholders in such programs (including, crucially, the workers) -so that the managers themselves see the business benefits of CSR -and are actually able to understand CSR as a holistic concept, rather than what they see at the moment (compliance, training etc). There is further to go, not least in addressing the scale-up challenges involved.

Scaling-up is the buzz word in the development world (where I work) and it is clear that the CSR world needs to take a leaf from the development world's book -or at least learn the lessons the development world has gained from many years of failures, and some successes attempting such grand initiatives. The Business world may be great at scaling up marketing, but scaling up CSR/development programs is different. For too long pilots have occurred in the supply chain and not expanded, there has been a lack of involvement of government, policy makers and academics, there has been limited attempts at partnership with other sectors (or with competitors) and not enough capacity building.

Maybe Supply Chain Staff should meet Marketing staff and realise that distributing products requires partnerships and adequate distribution channels, as well as effective communications, effective research and so on.

This takes me to the lesson the Supply Chain only seems to have recently learnt: the need to engage with stakeholders and more than this, provide for the stakeholders to make the decisions. In the development world the community is encouraged to make decisions -an example might be an offer of funding for a community to improve the community. Now, the funder might not actually care what the community chooses to do with the money, what they care about is the process the community went through to make the decision. Thus the community has buy-in and is accountable to itself as well as the funder, and the community will learn the lessons. At the conference people were finally talking about the need for a bottom-up approach; an engagement approach and so on.

There is of course a lack of people around who can facilitate this process, inspire the stakeholders to be involved, or trust the stakeholders enough! But, for Supply Chain Improvements to really take off, that is what must happen. The Buyers will need to reach a stage where they trust their suppliers and step back -audit less not more.

A Factory is different to a village community though, so Buyers need to empower the managers to willingly want to empower and engage with their employees and other stakeholders. Not much sustainable benefit to the buyers doing all the 'csr' on behalf of a factory they do not own! When a Factory manager spoke to us, he was not knowledgeable about CSR as a concept -and indeed most auditors are not 'csr experts' -they are auditors, and this is the problem. Most trainers (either from the company, ngos or consultancies) are training bits and pieces as required by whoever pays their services.

Development looks at comprehensive needs of a community, takes into account external factors, spends as much on research before a programme and evaluation after the programme (plus disseminating learning points) as the programme itself. Development requires spending LOTS of money, but aims to do small things well, then identify opportunities to scale-up -often involving government, business and other stakeholders.

The key to development though is that those being 'developed' want to be developed -they see the benefits, and this is not something the supply chain movement started with; and is something it has tried to create -Brands are having to go in and convince the factories of the benefits of CSR. Will this and other lessons be learnt? I suggest a dialogue between development NGOs and the Supply Chain actors; share some lessons, and then lets make sure that what is happening is sustainable. I don't believe much of the supply chain movement is sustainable. There are some fantastic examples, but these are few, and the sample a tiny proportion of all 'supliers' that exist -which is almost any company that sells something to someone!

Though the migrant workers complained at the conference about lack of training and how they wanted innovative training, career development opportunities and so on; they are much better off than in their villages -if not they would not be there. Ambition is a great thing. How about they take some of these lessons back to the factory outside their village, and take some leadership upon themselves? I think there needs to be some re-thinking about scaling-up. Let's hope that future conferences focus on that. Too much good stuff is happening to be wasted on having such low impact.

Is this great stuff bringing the whole field up? Maybe some of the factories in apparel, toys and electronics in a couple of geographical areas are getting better. Is the entire field of factories getting better, no matter where they are based or what product they are making? No, but some leaders need to start re-thinking, re-planning and being more ambitious.

The Stern Report states that we are witnessing the biggest market failure ever -and the consequences are climate change. It would be hard to argue with this. The report contains many suggestions and most are dependent on someone -business or government mostly doing something; rather than just talking. Whether this will happen or not depends on how sever climate change becomes (and the short-term impacts) and particularly on public opinion.

Public opinion does seem to be, finally, changing. After a recent conference on Supply Chain, I wonder if there are some lessons that could be learned from what has been going on there in the last 10-15 years or so, since public opinion started to become vocal through NGOs (though how much the average public really cared might still be debatable). The labour conditions is actually not a case of market failure: but it is a case of how a non-financial/tangible/measurable matter became a more important driver than economics.. In climate change we cannot wait until we run out of cheap coal before we find alternatives!

It is interesting how, I believe, average people still do not care much about poor labour conditions (often workers do have a choice of going back to the countryside if they wanted to, for lower wages and more poverty) or even about starving people in Africa -since that still persists even though it could be easily solved if there was the individual will. Instead changes come about through a few passionate people and the systems they use to stimulate change: specifically the International NGO and the media -both are leading the campaigns about climate change too. Good job they exist; good job they are doing something. Ironically various Sustainable Development Communication email lists are buzzing with the problem of people being confused with so many messages, and none of them seemingly working. It seems that the more popular an idea becomes, the more competition there is in the arena, the worse a problem becomes the harder it is to mobilise people with a simple message, simple solution, simple actions.

There have been lists around for years about how we could save water or energy, yet toilets still use up way too much water in a single flush than they need, and shops still sell inefficient light bulbs. The simple message is that we need more individuals who are going to make brave decisions: either for ethical reasons or because they can spot a market opportunity. Climate Change surely offers both as well -the World just needs more individuals to make the different, be different, and then they (and the World) can reap the benefits.

When your leadership role decines, and this seems inevitable, what do you do? Try to postpone the inevitable; try to prevent it through eliminating the competition; accept the decline and manage it to your own benefit or are there other options?

Some could argue the USA faces this option in the next 20-30 years. As sure as people cannot live forever, empires cannot live forever and the USA will need to sacrifice its individual dominance of the World at some point -maybe to China, maybe to China and India combined, or maybe it will just have to share its dominance with either of those (or Europe etc)?

Previous empires have tended to implode through over-stretching or because the competition beat them (often in a group) or because someone else just developed to be better.

Let me introduce: The Project for the New American Century is a non-profit educational organization dedicated to a few fundamental propositions: that American leadership is good both for America and for the world; and that such leadership requires military strength, diplomatic energy and commitment to moral principle. Now this seems to imply that the USA will not give up its leadership position.

Fair enough -let PNAC research this (and who knows how much support it actually has from the 'powers that be'. But what would be better for the USA is to also have another think-tank entitled: Project for the Non-American Century which could explore what the future might look like under a different country (or group of countries)'s leadership. It could explore what the US could do to ensure it still benefits from this decline, how to deal with the psychological implications, how to prevent a nuclear attack on the (overtaking) competition and so on.

Even more interesting it could explore peaceful means of how the US could retain its leadership role in a way that is good for itself and others; in partnership with others. Unfortunately political international partnerships (e.g UN) rarely work due to the inherent fundamental need to preserve one's self-interest over all else... simple game theory does not adequately explain irrationality based on human kind's selfishness; or if it does (I am not an expert) then why has no one put forward suggestions to make partnerships like the UN Security Council or WTO work better?

The Leadership of the US needs to be responsible to itself and to others by creating several scenarios of the future and explore each one in detail. Instead of just presuming there is only 1 possible scenario (continued dominance) and exploring how to best ensure that scenario happens. As we are slowly, slowly realising we are an interconnected species on a small planet (witness climate change) and we have to put the 'whole' ahead of ourselves. Other species seem to be able to do this. Are human beings up to the task?

I would hate to see yet another cold war of some king... one that might end up warming up just a little too much..

I'm a big supporter of the role of 'the market' to allocate resources effectively and balance long-term with short-term consequences. It is not perfect by any means and despite the interesting use of the stock market to counter for long-term impacts (e.g. futures), the time lag between our reaction to certain problems and our decision to do something about it is still too great.

There is though, always other problems, such as out lack of ability of how to do something about a problem (once we eventually realise it is a problem).There are also some things where a 'market concept' has not developed -and maybe cannot develop. One example is politics; which should be the model 'market' but is often not; another is the Media. For several years I have held a great interest in the role of the media, its power, its use, its ownership, its impartiality and so on. What strikes me as interesting is to consider the 'marketisation' of the media, into monopoly ownership (is it a bad thing? if so, won't bad things naturally fail to be replaced with better things?), onto the internet (how many of us would love to spend all out time viewing all that media up there -too much!) and how it impacts it's content.

I think the UK is in an interesting situation regarding the media. There are some media providers who are purely commercial (though still regualted by the government and forced to show a certain number of 'educational shows', or to limit the amount of advertisements, for example) and then there is the BBC. The BBC is about broadcasting TV and radio (nationally and globally), funding and making content for itselves and others and providing the UK's most popular website (and a top site globally). Although it is sort of a non-profit entity, its existence is entirely dependent on the government to give it its 'license' -i.e. remit on what it can or cannot do. Thus the government controls the BBC -but the funding comes directly from the people (everyone must buy a TV license), though this is not a tax it is barely a 'user fee' since usage of the BBC is so loosely related to how much is paid (compared to a normal market commodity).

As much as the BBC loves to hate the government it has to rely on the individuals within the government who are willing to support something that might be bad for the government (its controllers). Indeed what makes the BBC so interesting is this weird balance of control and ownership.. because it impacts what the BBC is able to do, and crucially, what the content is.Thus the media is a unique issue to discuss in the context of responsible leadership.

Many argue (at a macro level) about the crucial role the media has to play in informing the public, in playing an active role in supporting democracy, freedoms (of speech etc). Others can argue (at a micro level) about whether the media should promote domestic talent (since it is paid for by domestic money) or whether it is stifling other competition. It makes the mind boggle to consider how complex a responsibility the BBC has -given its international role, its influence across so many types of media and its remarkably high level of trust that almost everyone holds in it (in a world where no-one trusts any thing nowadays!).

My take is that there is a responsibility to stimulate a healthy democracy and debate, there is a responsibility to inform people about issues that they need to be educated about (climate change, poverty or whatever), there is a need to provide fantastic documentaries even if so few people watch them, there is a need to provide a platfor for new talent and new ideas and there is also a need to show shows that people actually want (e.g.soap operas).

Getting the balance right is not easy; it seems the BBC is doing ok with this balance at the moment, and the government is doing a fair job of both controlling and not controlling the BBC in a way that is best for the 'public good' (who can decide what THAT is?). I hope that it continues in it unique and weird form to continue to be a fantastic organisation.

The 5 other animals that are in the same species as the Panda (debated as to what exact species the Panda is) have all disappeared -most of them hundreds of thousands of years ago, and not because of mankind. Now the Panda has started disappearing, partly from human activity and partly from other animals or natural changes.

To some extent, yes, it is because of humans that the Panda is now facing extinction -but at the same time, it is also simple evolution that the panda has failed to react adequately to climate changes; failed to change its eating habits; failed to escape from or attack predators; failed to mate quick enough etc.

Much is made of manking altering nature for our own good, well should we be artificially protecting the panda; which currently only survives in zoos or protected reserves. I believe only 1 panda has been returned to the wild (ever); no matter how much we can increase the population of pandas, what is the point if they cannot survive alone in the wild, unsupported?

Do we have an obligation to protect species from going extinct? Should we continue to keep them alive in order to study them, their breeding habits and so on, so we can increase our knowledge of nature, animals and history? Are we only protecting the panda because it is cute (and other animals that are not cure, are disappearing)? and so on....

What should we do, what is the responsible thing to do? I can definitely see value in protecting the panda in order to study it and learn from it; but then i think that what we should do is have these kinds of discussions about the panda, about extinctions and about mankind's place in this world. Instead of information in zoos about how we should support the panda, donate money to WWF and environmental conservation, we should be telling children the panda's story and discussing with them these and other philosophical questions.

Rarely does anyone learn about philosophy at school, unless they take it at 16, 18 or older as some academic option, but at a time when the debates are growing into the general public demain about the role of business in society, about the role of humans on our planet, about the role of the person flying on holiday (is there a right to travel?), then i think that a great philosophy class could tie all of this together in a fun and interesting way (the panda is a great example). This helps the future generations learn about the past, explore the present and challenge the current preconceptions. Right now the most responsible thing we can do is explore new ways of living; of surviving -we cannnot go on as we are.