If you are looking around for ethical companies and business leaders, perhaps even scrounging around for some socially responsible investment, you could do worse than look at the latest edition of Ethispherhe magazine.

It has an interesting piece on the 100 most influential people in business ethics. Some of the names surprised me. SEC chairman Christopher Cox for one. How the hell did he get that after the Securities and Exchange Commission's bout of stupidity last year when it put up a web site linking companies to state sponsors of terrorism of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria.

Still, the list is worth reading. The selection panel used some rigorous criteria: impact on government rules and regulations, business leadership, design and sustainability, handling of whistleblowers, thought leadership, culture, investment and research and corporate culture.

Some of the standouts include GE's chief executive Jeffrey Immelt ("More than any other major industrial company, GE has aligned itself with environmental initiatives under Immelt's leadership. Between GE's Ecomagination marketing campaign and Immelt's public commitment and leadership in the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) coalition, GE has shown a spotlight on the discussion around climate change and profit/loss opportunities"), Virgin's Richard Branson ("A partial list of influential actions in 2007 include: his Virgin Airlines blowing the whistle on an illegal airline cargo price collusion and Virgin ponying up a $25 million prize for whoever can develop a commercially viable design to cut down on greenhouse gasses"), Xerox chairman and CEO Anne Mulcahy ("She took over the reins at Xerox in the wake of a scandal and helped to reinvigorate the firm's innovation, sales, business focus and ethical culture. When not running Xerox, she is serving as the Chairman of the Business Roundtable Corporate Governance Task Force. Under her leadership, Xerox also embraced diversity and profitably championed sustainability. Patricia Calkins, Xerox's VP EH&S claims that not only did Xerox save 11 million pounds of harmful e-waste from landfills in 2006, but the company also saved more than $2 billion by doing so. Now that's a lot of green!") and PepsiCo chairman and CEO Indra Nooyi ("PepsiCo has much invested in being a "good" corporate citizen, and Nooyi has much to do with that. What distinguishes PepsiCo, however, is that it doesn't stop at the "easy stuff" (such as purchasing renewable energy credits, of which the company already buys more than anyone else). Rather, PepsiCo really tries to change. It reformulated products to become healthier (Baked Lays) and encouraged less consumption of some of them (the 100-calorie snack packs) and refurbished its chip plants to become net zero users of energy").

It's an inspiring list because it shows us what can be done.