Very interesting- so the The Washington Post finally goes the way of the Financial Times and The Economist, in determining that CSR is just good business?

When will we drop the assumption that CSR has to cost more money to a firm? If CSR is treated like a business strategy, it should from the outset be designed to a) create wealth and/ or b) protect wealth. Problem is, companies are only recently beginning to treat CSR as a business strategy, though smart, pioneering companies like Levi have been treating it as such for decades.

While I am glad that the Post conducted such a study and drew the conclusions that it did, I hope they continue to track these companies for longer than one year. That time frame is too short. We need to bust out of this short term thinking--it is indeed part of what has gotten us into the economic crisis of present: in investing, banking, mortgages, credit, steroid usage, etc.

Instead of thinking, "What will this do for me today, this quarter, this year?," we desperately need to ask, "What will this do for me in three years? In five years?" My hypothesis is that if the Post continues to track these companies over a 3-5 year time frame, the socially responsible companies will outperform the least socially responsible companies by more than 1.4 percentage points.

But good start, Post. Join the likes of the The Economist and the Financial Times in recognizing that, if done strategically, CSR is just good business!