"You have to understand that most of the companies that are the worst polluters are not big multinational corporations. They know that if they commit serious human rights or environmental abuses, there's going to be a very big fuss, a public outcry," says Meredith Block. It's a popular misconception, and one I've fallen for straight away. Luckily, in her role as Executive Director of the Blacksmith Institute, a US-based organisation specialising in a hands-on attitude to solving pollution problems, Block is in a good position to put me straight - especially with the recent publication of the Institute's recent report, The Top 10 Worst Pollution Problems 2008. This survey flags up areas such as artisanal and small-scale gold mining and lead acid battery acid recycling - neither of which could be described as populated by multinationals - as some of the activities and conditions that pose the greatest threat to human health, particularly in the developing world. With the benefit of hindsight, these results shouldn't seem that surprising. After all, corporate social responsibility has been a major issue for the last quarter of a century, and as Block points out, big business has been keen to distance itself from the practices covered by the institute's survey for some time now. Yet the world is facing is an unprecedented time of change at the moment. With this in mind, I spoke to Marcus Gilleard, Head of Corporate Partnerships at environmental charity Earthwatch Europe and Simon Forster, founder of CSR advisors Simon Forster & Associates, about whether the major players can remain responsible as the pressure continues to mount. LOOKING BACK "I think in terms of the global companies, there has been major change to try and improve their image over the last 25 years," says Forster. "If I think back, some countries were a little bit backward and certainly didn't have the legislative and regulatory systems in place, and there was a great deal of latitude by big corporations in terms of damage to the environment and impact on local communities. But as the global spotlight turned on to those companies and countries in particular, and we've seen a major difference in attitudes." "From my personal experience, certainly attitudes have changed," agrees Gilleard. "In the early days when I was working with corporations, the environment was very much something which was sitting on the sidelines, kind of a poor cousin of the whole sustainability issue. "It was very much something that when times were hard, it was the first thing that would be dropped. But as the whole sustainability agenda took off and the concept of corporate social responsibility came into the scene, I think major companies very quickly realized that the environment is something they have to sit up and take notice of." ALL CHANGE There's no doubt that that's happening now. Between them, Forster and Gilleard count names such as Xstrata, Shell, Cadbury and HSBC among their clients. The latter in particular is a good example of the high-profile, high-impact approach many multinationals have been bringing to their CSR policies. Last year, HSBC launched the HSBC Climate Partnership together with The Climate Group, Earthwatch, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and WWF, a $100 million, five-year programme with the aims of cleaning up London, New York and Shanghai and conducting the largest ever field experiment on the long-term effects of climate change. Cadbury is another that has worked closely with Earthwatch, since 2004 undertaking a partnership in Ghana that has involved individuals from both Cadbury businesses and local communities in scientific research to investigate issues around biodiversity and cocoa productivity in the region. Even the mining industry - a sector that Forster has worked closely with for a number of years - has numerous CSR success stories, with Forster citing giants Xstrata and even Anglo-American plc (a firm that has come under much criticism in the past for its environmental practices) as companies working hard to increase awareness of climate change and reduce their own environmental impact. But is all this good work likely to come to an end now that many of the world's major economic powers are facing a recession? THE PRESSURE'S ON "I'm sure some companies are thinking, `Oh, we can push the environment to one side now and focus on the financial crisis at the moment,'" says Gilleard , "but I think its gone beyond purely thinking in terms of regulatory terms or in terms of cutting costs. I mean, certainly the cost issue is still very much a fundamental part of the decision making, but when you look at what's actually going on at the moment, I don't think that's going to be the case." To demonstrate this, Gilleard points to a recent report by Deutsche Bank economist Pavan Sukhdev. The paper, titled The Economics of Ecosystems & Biodiversity, states that the capital loss to financial firms in the City and Wall Street has been estimated as $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion due to the fallout from the economic crisis. However, Sukhdev said in a recent interview that TEEB "looked at the extent of losses taking place as a result of deforestation and degradation and estimated the loss in human welfare as a capital item, and worked out that this was $2 to $4.5 trillion per year, every year, for the last several years. "It will continue," he added, "if we carry on with business as usual. Why is it that a one-off loss of $1.5 trillion in financial capital to a group of Wall Street firms attracts so much attention, whereas the ongoing loss per annum of twice this amount of natural capital is barely reported?" Indeed, Sukhdev isn't the only to put forward the idea of an `environmental credit crunch.' The Living Planet Report, published by WWF every two years since 1998, shows that more than three quarters of the world's people now live in nations that are what it describes as `ecological debtors,' where national consumption has outstripped their country's biological capacity. LEVERAGE If, as Gilleard says, all this has been taken on board and embedded in the strategies of the major players, it's an obvious step forward. Yet there's still one side that has been left out of all this - the smaller firms in the developing world that are still polluting heavily, companies that Block says are often `the lifeblood of their communities.' As the Blacksmith Institute's survey shows, some of the greatest challenges facing the environment in the coming years is the reform, and education, of these businesses. And of course, here the corporations have the potential to demonstrate their commitment. However, as Forster says, this could be the one area where many are falling short. "There's only one way they can educate, and that's by refusing to do business with them," he explains. "I don't think I've seen much indication of education or willingness to educate. Its too costly, and it takes the larger companies out of their out of their comfort zone, away from their focus of operation." "At the end of the day, it boils down to one thing and one thing only - leverage. If you are a small company in a less developed country and you are being offered the opportunity to do business with a global player, then you clean up your act as they require." It sounds like a simple solution, and in a buoyant economic situation, it could well have been just that. But as things stand, it may instead be the biggest challenge corporations face in cementing their turnaround from offenders to leaders in the field of the environment. And with so much at stake, all eyes will be on what happens next.