It is 50 years since famed economist Milton Friedman wrote an article with the headline "The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits." Increasingly, environmental and social responsibility is seen as a key issue for the modern corporation.

What is your view on whether corporations should be allowed to focus purely n economic profit or whether they need to be regulated to ensure appropriate environmental, social and governance (ESG) behaviour? In answering, discuss the validity or otherwise of the conventional accounting approach to 'valuing' environmental and social assets. Also, analyse the impact of the modern phenomenon of social accounting; does it improve firms' ESG performance or does it mask poor behaviour through 'greenwashing'?