The present article analyses corporate social responsibility reports of some multinational corporations in order to investigate the use and function of euphemistic expressions. Since corporations primarily need to take economic responsibility for their business, but also engage more and more in philanthropic practices as an important part of their activities, they may run the risk of coming across as hypocritical. This is because business and philanthropy are often considered as being essentially in contradiction. Euphemisms therefore appear as an effective strategy to communicate without apparent contradictions both about business and philanthropy-related matters.