Oct. 26, 2007 Carbon offsets may be making headlines, but most companies are steering clear, according to corporate sustainability executives polled at the recent Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) conference in San Francisco last week.

Just 6% of respondents characterized carbon offsets as key to their companies' climate change efforts, while 31% pointed to energy efficiency and renewable energy programs as their primary focus.

Carbon offsetting the practice of funding renewable energy projects to counterbalance or "neutralize" a company's climate impact has come under fire in recent months as a poorly regulated, potentially ineffective approach that business can use to green its image without having to actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Unsurprisingly for this gathering of private sector executives, NGOs, and policymakers focused on corporate social responsibility, 82% of those survey said they were optimistic that companies around the world will make CSR a core business strategy in the next five years.

"There's a tremendous sense of optimism that sustainability integrated, comprehensive solutions to urgent global challenges such as climate change, consumer product safety, and the impact of rapid industrialization is now firmly on both the business and public agenda," says Aron Cramer, president and CEO of BSR. "The opportunity to make real and lasting progress on critical business sustainability issues has never been greater."

The majority of respondents (69%) named China as the country that will most influence the evolution of corporate responsibility in the next five years.