Interesting report from London-based Ethical Investment Research Services identifying gaps in the approach of business towards ethical issues.

In the area of corporate governance, businesses tend to be quite strong. According to the study, 62 per cent of companies have boards containing more than a third of independent directors. But over 90 per cent of companies in North America, UK, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Norway, Finland and Australia had more than a third of independent directors.

But significant gaps open up in the area of environment and human rights.

On one hand, 57 per cent of all companies have a publicly available Environmental policy statement in place. But American companies are lagging behind the pack. Over 90 per cent of high impact companies in Europe and Japan have developed basic or advanced policies for managing environmental impacts, compared with just 67 per cent in the US. For Australia, the Kyoto non-signatory, it's slightly higher at 75 per cent. Environmental performance was strongest amongst companies in Europe and Japan.

A similar story in the area of human rights.

Companies in Norway, the Netherlands, the UK and Finland were more likely to have developed advanced human rights policies. According to the study 50 per cent or more of companies in these countries with large operations in high risk countries - such as those Africa and Asia - have an advanced human rights policy. In contrast, a low proportion of US and Japanese companies operating in high risk countries had developed advanced policies, less than 5 per cent in each case.