This paper has been written by Tom Bigg and Halina Ward of the International Institute for Environment and Development at the invitation of the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs. It is intended to generate discussion on the potential for the creation of an international multistakeholder process to address some of the key gaps in the contemporary agenda on ‘corporate responsibility’ or ‘corporate social responsibility’. It has not been possible to discuss any of the options outlined in the paper with individuals or agencies whose activities we refer to and we therefore stress that the views that we put forward in this paper are ours alone.