Although corporate social responsibility and sustainability are big buzzwords right now, and have been for some time, actual efforts to implement sustainable practices within the supply chain have not been a priority for many companies over the past few years.

This is, of course, hardly surprising. Given the vast array of changing regulations, increased compliance requirements, and the need to simply focus on basics as markets floundered through some of the toughest economic conditions of the past century, any projects not deemed either necessary for compliance purposes or able to show a very quick return on investment were understandably put on hold.

The current proxy season is giving hope to social and environmental shareholder activists they will eventually prevail on management to adopt their resolutions.

Those favoring socially and environmentally sound policies are winning historically high levels of support. While they're non-binding, increasing support for them puts pressure on managers to respond.

Brazilian companies are taking a page from their US counterparts when it comes to governance and corporate social responsibility. In a recent Latin American corporate governance survey by Latin Finance and consultancy Management & Excellence, Brazilian firms topped the rankings across different industries--not only aiming for compliance, but striving for excellence in corporate social responsibility, sustainability, board independence and other governance measures.

Companies throughout the region are showing increasing interest in building their good governance reputations in order to attract capital investment from Latin America, the US, and globally.