Conscience decisions.

• Author: Kinney, David
• Position: Outback - The Forum for Corporate Conscience

Cage them in Guantanamo, next to al-Qaida captives, and roast them black beneath the Cuban sun--just a hint of the hell they so richly deserve. After all, corrupt corporate chieftains have bested terrorists when it comes to crippling our economy. Post 9/11, the stock market climbed back on investors' faith in Corporate America. Now it's foundering, despite all the facts and the fundamentals in its favor, because we, as reasonable people, can't believe what Corporate America tells us.

The weekend of March 14-16, 150 leaders of some of the biggest businesses in the Carolinas will gather in Charlotte for The Forum for Corporate Conscience. It promises to be an impressive affair. Its 22-member board of advisers, chaired by Hugh McColl, includes Ken Thompson, Ken Lewis, Rick Priory, William Cavanaugh and Bob Ingram, names whose affiliations, since you're reading a business magazine, you already know. Warren Buffett will deliver the keynote speech. Novelist Tom Wolfe will wrap it up.

In between, participants will chew on, as the event's subtitle goes, "meaning and values in today's society." They'll discuss the three pillars--economic, environmental and social--that the Conference Board says will sustain corporations in the 21st century. (Buffett's speech, of course, will focus on the first.) Prodded by "professional facilitators," the tycoons will ponder, then produce a white paper on, the new "triple bottom line."

It's the brainchild of Chris William, who works in private wealth management for Wachovia Securities, and Mary Tribble, a Charlotte events planner. "It started a long time before Enron, a long time before WorldCom," says William, who hosts public television's Carolina Business Review. "It really started, for me personally...