ICT Aficionados

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 Actio 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. They also agreed that a joint campaign targeting Wal-Mart would be the single most effective way to achieve significant social and environmental change through the marketplace.

For the past three years, CEI has filled an important vacuum in the corporate reform movement. It is the only U.S. NGO dedicated not only to developing a strategic long-term roadmap to transform the role of corporations in our society, but also to bringing diverse NGOs together to enhance their capacity through education, networking, fund raising, and campaign collaboration. It has four interrelated projects which will play an important role in this effort.

• The Business Ethics Network is a North American-based network of corporate campaign NGOs. Its job is to facilitate communication, coordination, and capacity building among NGOs.
• The Tar Sands Oil Campaign is an international effort coordinated by CEI to block the expansion of tar sands oil production and importation in order to accelerate the transition to a clean transportation future.
• The Big Box Collaborative is a cross-issue, cross-strategy, cross-border effort to transform the big box industry into a major driver of social and environmental change through its global supply chain.
• The Strategic Corporate Initiative involves creating a roadmap with a consensus vision, framework, goals, and tracks for a long-term effort to bring corporations back in service to the general welfare of the public.