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The CEO and cofounder of Seventh Generation, a maker of environmentally responsible household and personal care products, describes how he came to realize that although he'd been the right person to guide his company through its infancy and adolescence, he was not the right one to take it into full-fledged adulthood. Having made the decision to step down, he had to determine the best way to proceed: How quickly should he move? How public should he be? How would he get buy-in from the board and the company's associates? How would he ensure that Seventh Generation's fierce commitment to social and environmental sustainability endured? Most important, was he doing the right thing?

There are still some who consider the phrase "socially responsible business" a contradiction in terms and who feel that the notion of corporate social responsibility is merely a trend and intrinsically suspect. Others believe that this emerging doctrine of deeper and broader accountability for business is deeply pernicious, because it distracts profit-making organizations from what they do best: make profits for their shareholders. Takes the perspective that what matters most is harnessing the power of business to make the world a better place. (Based on a presentation by Jeffrey Hollender at the sixth annual Peterson Lecture on Business Ethics, sponsored by the Center for Responsible Business at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley.)