In 1970, Milton Friedman wrote “that a corporation’s only moral responsibility was to increase shareholder profits.” The article that quotes him suggests that a majority of people disagree with his opinion (“The Responsibility Revolution” by Richard Stengel, Time, September 21, 2009), and that “purpose-inspired growth,” which the Baldrige Criteria encourages with questions about social responsibilities, is fast gaining momentum.

According to the article, six in ten Americans have bought organic products so far in 2009. Of a thousand people polled, 82% have consciously supported local or neighborhood businesses this year and nearly 40% bought a product in 2009 “because they liked the social or political values of the company that produced it.” Socially responsible investment mutual funds “now manage about 11% of all the money invested in U.S. financial markets.” A 2007 survey by Goldman Sachs revealed that “companies with a strong emphasis on sustainability outperformed the market, often by a large margin.”

Even Wal-Mart, the bane of local and neighborhood businesses, is fiddling with social responsibility: “It is developing a sustainability index that will one day show consumers at a glance how green its products are.”

Cynics would argue that Wal-Mart is only boarding the environmental bandwagon to make money. Geoffrey Heal, a Columbia Business School professor says: So what? “I don’t care whether companies change for the love of the environment or because of their financial interest,” he says. “The most sustainable solution is to have companies responding to financial incentives rather than their own feelings.”

Friedman may have been right about a corporation existing to make money, but he was wrong about this being its only moral responsibility. The Baldrige Criteria can help businesses figure out what those responsibilities are and how best to address them.

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