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• How effective is EU environmental legislation?

• By Peter Wognum
• Tough new emission rules, which will bring together seven existing (and frankly, leaky) bits of disparate EU legislation, were agreed last week in Luxembourg. The agreement brings the EU a little closer to having some real laws, with bite, on curbing the effects of industrial pollution.
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• Finding a chairman is musical chairs in reverse

• By Richard Northedge
• Have we made chairing a company so hard that seats cannot be filled? There are vacancies in the centre of more than half a dozen big boardrooms but the headhunters don’t have that many names on their lists.
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• The battle of the sexes, redefined

• By Peter Wognum
• A recent article in the Times makes for interesting reading and, in essence, concludes that womankind will be the planet’s saviour (if it isn’t already too late!). “Just as there is a wise woman behind every successful man, or so the saying goes, there is also one behind most ethical businesses”, the article begins, covering [...]
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• Should you accept the Jackson refund or keep a souvenir ticket?

• By Richard Northedge
• If £75 was a high price for a ticket to see Michael Jackson perform live in London, it is an awful lot to pay for a souvenir of his truncated life. However, you have to admire the cheek of the concert organisers in allowing fans to keep their tickets instead of accepting a refund.
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• Madoff’s sentence is too long to be a deterrent

• By Richard Northedge
• If 71-year-old Bernie Madoff gets 150 years in jail for a $65bn fraud, what deterrent is there against going for a $130bn scam - or $260bn? Or why not do a serious crime?
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• Rewriting the governance code again

• By Richard Northedge
• Another crisis, another corporate governance code. What started as Cadbury and developed into the Combined Code is being rewritten again. But if it changes so often, why should we think this will be the definitive version?
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• The BBC, the Tories and the Sugar solution

• By Richard Northedge
• This blog was first to highlight the conflict of Sir Alan Sugar presenting The Apprentice while advising the government. With BBC director-general Mark Thompson taking to his own airwaves to defend the indefensible, let me now offer a way out off the problem.
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• Legislation is not the (only) answer

• By Peter Wognum
• Speaking recently at Sustainabilitylive!, Vanessa Harvard-Williams, global head of environment with legal firm Linklaters, discussed the 2020 and 2050 targets of reducing carbon emissions by (eventually) 80% and stated that she wants to see governments cascade their commitments down as hard regulations in order to help business.
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