The article, a contribution by the Centre for Poverty Analysis (CEPA), highlights the evolving movement of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Shell became the first major corporation to publish a CSR report in 1998, after the early ‘90s had revealed that many public corporations needed to play a meaningful role in society. Today, CSR has become fashionable and an area to which companies have dedicated divisions within their organisation towards this exercise. The article discusses whether the growth in CSR is a cause for optimism or concern, with a sense of suspicion of its motives. Three key questions have been raised in this article: who defines responsibility, how do we measure it and what is the role of the consumer. CSR may also distract attention from irresponsible behaviour of corporates, in which case there is clearly a gap in what businesses do and in what they say they do. The article also calls on customers to be more mindful of ethical practices and to contribute to strengthen the purpose of CSR.