Urging companies to include talent in their corporate responsibility agendas might seem an unnecessary exercise. Few organisations need to be told that their key to success lies in the ability to recruit and retain skilled, experienced employees, and business leaders have long cited people as their "greatest asset".

Stephen Howard has been chief executive of Business in the Community for barely six months, but he is fizzing with ideas for pushing forward the corporate social responsibility agenda. The economic forecast is cloudy, and many of the organisations that have been pillars of the responsible business community are dealing with the fallout from the credit crunch. But Mr Howard remains confident that member companies will see the strategies developed through BITC as part of the solution to their current woes.

Plastic bags, landbanks, treatment of suppliers and allegations of price-fixing are just a few of the issues that supermarket bosses have been forced to grapple with by the Government, competition watchdogs and consumer groups over recent years.

More than half of Britain's leading graduate employers are concerned about a lack of basic skills such as reading and writing among university recruits, according to new research.

Hospital patients, prisoners and millions of Britain's public sector workers are to be the focus of a healthy eating initiative drawn up by ministers. Canteens will be expected to meet new guidelines on nutrition, lower fat, salt and sugar content, and portion size.

In October 1997 John Browne, then chief executive of BP, told a conference of Greenpeace activists what a pleasure it was to be occupying one of their platforms instead of the usual practice of their occupying his.

A government rethink over biofuels regulation, less than three months after its introduction, alienated both the fledgling biofuels industry and green campaigners yesterday. In his long-awaited review of the sector, Ed Gallagher concluded that biofuels should not be abandoned but that the rate of adoption proposed by the government should slow.

Man Group has teamed up with an Abu Dhabi-owned investment company to make electricity from the gas produced as a byproduct of oil drilling, which is currently wasted in the form of flaring.

SOUTHWOLD brewer Adnams has beaten off competition from more than 350 other companies to secure one of the UK's leading awards for responsible business.

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Business in the Community is a unique movement of over 750 of the UK's top companies committed to improving their positive impact on society.