Guest blogger Rhys Thom is an intern with WRI's EarthTrends project. Originally from Albuquerque, New Mexico, Rhys comes to WRI with an extensive background in development, having worked in Honduras, Namibia, and Nigeria. He also owns his own multimedia marketing firm.

As the ideas of corporate social responsibility and the triple bottom line become more pervasive in the private sector, new questions and obstacles are bound to arise. At Columbia Business School's Social Enterprise Conference 2006 last Friday, three themes resonated throughout the conference: the need for metrics to quantify social and environmental profits, the need for NGOs and public sector entities to be professional and accountable for public/private partnerships to work, and bringing Corporate Social Responsibility out of the proverbial ghetto.

The day started off with a panel on Creative Approaches to Global Health Problems. I arrived half way through (who knew that the Upper West Side is an hour-plus subway ride from Park Slope?) but was still in time to catch a few salient remarks from leaders in the public health arena. New approaches to philanthropy, market mechanisms for drug distribution to developing markets, and obstacles to creating and providing vaccines for AIDS and malaria were among the new ideas being kicked around. Patricia Duquette, the Director of Women's Health and Global HIV/AIDS Initiative at Bristol-Meyers Squibb Foundation, discussed new trends in philanthropy including donating expertise and intellectual property to non-profit health organizations, citing Merck and BMS's in-kind donation to the International Partnership for Microbicides of a royalty-free license to develop, manufacture, and distribute their microbicide compounds in developing countries.

Continue reading past the break as Rhys discusses greenwashing, CSR as PR, Costco, private equity in development, and the environmental implications of the BOP Protocol:

With more than a few mentions on NextBillion during its development, it was nice to see LifeStraw covered in today's New York Times.

The LifeStraw sells for $3, is approximately the size of a paper towel tube (i.e. 25cm long by 29mm in diameter), and filters out 99.99% of bacteria, the main cause of water-borne diseases such as Typhoid, Cholera, Dysentery and Diarrhoea that kill 6,000 people a day.