Coca-Cola CEO E. Neville Isdell has urged ‘more companies to get involved’ in protecting the environment. He spoke to a crowd of his peers at a meeting of the UN’s Global Compact in Geneva on July 7.

The Reuters report on his speech described his fervor with phrases such as ‘rattling the pulpit’ and ‘railing against his fellow executives to stand up and do more to protect the environment — particularly drinkable water’.

Exciting – and significant – as Isdell’s speech is, the Reuters story also captured the dilemma for corporations and their stakeholders in setting expectations – and limits – for what does not directly affect the corporate bottom line. Here is an excerpt from the article:

Non-governmental organizations and protest groups that once demonized global operations like Coke now sometimes look to businesses as “enablers of change,” Isdell said.

But he draws the line at Coke harnessing its legendary distribution network to deliver humanitarian material in Africa — a suggestion put forward by some aid agencies — where it is easier to find a can of Coke than, for example, anti-malarial mosquito nets.

“We can’t do that,” he told Reuters.

“At the end of the day we are a commercial enterprise and we can’t do what governments do or fail to do.”

It would be all too easy to paint Mr. Isdell’s statement as hypocritical, given his sermon on corporate involvement in the environmental cause. In fact, he and the Reuters reporter have pointed to one of the great challenges of our time.

Business campaigned in the last third of the 20th century for government to get out of their way, to let them and the market address the problems government had failed to remedy. Now leaders like Mr. Isdell call on government to address issues that are outside business’s scope.

Business and the public alike must recognize that for government to take on, say, malaria, requires money and power.

Corporations are going to have to pay for these efforts that benefit them through higher taxes – something at least in the US that goes counter the trend to lower or eliminate corporate taxes. It also means re-empowering government both through funding and through rebuilding its credibility. And in the process, we must redraw the balances of responsibilities among the constituents of our society.

It would be hard to overstate how hard it will be to do this. Still, I think it possible. Who would have thought ten years ago that a CEO of Mr. Isdell’s rank would tell his peers, “In the 21st century, you’re going to have to be seen as a steward of the planet.”