In June 2003, many of the top environmental and environmental health markets campaigners from the U.S., Europe, and Canada came together for the first time at the Markets Synergies Conference in Bolinas, California. The participants included Greenpeace International, Rainforest Action Network, ForestEthics, Union of Concerned Scientists, Organic Consumers Association, US PIRGs, Health Care without Harm, Clean Production Network, and several others. They agreed to create the Business Ethics Network (BEN), with the mission of improving the effectiveness of corporate campaigns worldwide in order to make business practices more ethical in terms of the environment, health, social justice, and labor.

In the months following its inception, BEN launched a website that included case studies of some of the most prominent corporate campaigns in recent years as well as tools to educate new corporate campaigners. Its staff provided instruction or campaign consultation to several groups including the Genetic Engineering Action Network, Center for New American Dream, EarthWorks, Rainforest Action Network, ForestEthics, GreenCorp, Friends of the Earth-Japan, and the US PIRGs. At the request of the membership, the BEN staff, which now included Sonya Carlson, began research on the feasibility of a cross-sector campaign targeting Wal-Mart. In November 2004, Michael Marx released a white paper calling for a unified international campaign targeting Wal-Mart. He argued that “either we change Wal-Mart or Wal-Mart will change us-and not for the better.” That paper not only led to organizing efforts across issue sectors, but to high level discussions with Wal-Mart senior executives that helped to launch Wal-Mart’s environmental initiative.

The Wal-Mart work led CEI to create its second project: The Big Box Campaign. Mari Margil, formerly with the Sierra Club of Oregon, was hired in 2005 as Director of Corporate Transformation. Today many of BEN’s member organizations are engaged in work to fundamentally transform the big box industry. In 2008-2009 the Big Box Campaign project will be under renovation and renewal to better showcase the work being done and the goals that have been achieved.

BEN held its first annual conference in October 2005 in San Francisco. It attracted over 135 participants from around the country. Joe Trippi, former Howard Dean Campaign Director, and George Lakoff, author of “Don’t Think of an Elephant…” keynoted. The first annual BENNY Awards were given to the top six corporate campaigns. In 2006, BEN hired a new coordinator, Anne Pernick, formerly with the League of Conservation Voters in Portland, OR. She coordinated the second annual conference with its keynoters Ray Anderson, CEO Interface Corporation, and Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the Farm Workers’ Union with Caesar Chavez. Anne Pernick is now a Director and the BEN conference has grown into a vital part of BEN work. Its campaign community nominated awards, the BENNY and the Path to Victory, are proof of the vibant and expanding community that is dedicated to positive change.

In 2006, CEI launched its third project-The Strategic Corporate Initiative (SCI). The purpose of this project is to design a long-term movement to transform the role of corporations in our society. CEI created an SCI-Team that includes Institute for Policy Studies, Center for Corporate Policy, and Tellus Institute. Working with leading corporate reform activists and theorists, the SCI-Team created a report outlining its vision of the role of corporations in the future, the framing for this initiative, and the long-term strategic roadmap for achieving the vision. Please read more about these long term efforts in the report [PDF]:

SCI: Toward a Global Citizens’ Movement to Bring Corporations Back Under Control