Happy birthday to PwC. Happy birthday to PwC. Happy birthday to Pw-Cee. Happy birthday to PwC.

Today marks the tenth anniversary of the merger of Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand (remember them?). It should be a cause for celebration. And to a degree it is. The merger created the blueprint for the modern accountancy colossus: a global assurance and advisory business built on solid audit foundations with plenty to offer the world's biggest and most ambitious companies.

But PwC, in the UK at least, is also in reflective mood.

There's more noise around the issue of protecting the word accountant. ACCA member Alan Shooter has set up an online petition on the Downing Street website and a month on from its creation, he has attracted 50 signatures.

He is demanding - and these are his capitals, not mine - that we 'PREVENT UNQUALIFIED ACCOUNTANTS,TAX AND FINANCIAL ADVISORS PROVIDING SERVICES UNLESS THEY HAVE PROFESSIONALLY RECOGNISED QUALIFICATIONS'.

To put that level of support into some kind of context I took a look at other petitions created on 24 June.

I'm speaking at the Oxford Union tonight in a debate entitled, provocatively, corporate social responsibility will not survive the economic downturn.

I'm speaking for the motion that many companies will water down their current commitments as they seek to reduce costs at a time of falling revenues. It's something I fear is inevitable.

There is of course danger surrounding the negative PR that may result, though in many cases this can be easily dealt with.

With soaring energy prices, green commitments can be maintained for cost reasons rather than CSR reasons.

And other parts of the CSR piece are much less likely to survive.

It's been easy to forget in recent months that there is much more to CSR than environmental sustainability.

To be a member of the FTSE4GOOD Index, for instance, eligible companies must do more than simply work towards a green goal.

They should develop positive relationships with stakeholders, uphold and support universal human rights, ensure good supply chain labour standards and counter bribery.

Yet there are already signs those other criteria are suffering.

More than one in three of the international business leaders surveyed last month by Ernst & Young reported a worsening of corrupt business practices.

At home, Boots is one of 14 (largely retail) companies to have come under fire for imposing a 'settlement fee' on smaller suppliers. And earlier this month Channel 4 pulled from its schedules a documentary about the ongoing sourcing of low-cost high street fashion.

Tonight's ICAEW-sponsored debate should be interesting. (Other speakers include Mallen Baker, development director of Business in the Community, Dr Robert Barrington,
director of governance & socially responsible investment with F&C Investments, Dr Kevin Money of Henley Management College, Owen Espley of Friends of the Earth and Miriam Kennet. co-founder of the Green Economics Institute.)

But it won't be victory on the night that matters.

If companies are serious about CSR it's essential it's not treated like a menu, with different options to be picked and refused at different times, depending on your mood.