How Did the Business Ethics Leadership Alliance (BELA) Get Started?
The Alliance was brought together as a forum to recognize all companies that embody and operate with strong ethical business principles – and to inspire other companies to strive to meet the same standard.
What Are the Benefits of Joining the Business Ethics Leadership Alliance?
Member Companies receive valuable services from BELA to help them uphold ethical business practices. Additionally BELA has a large marketing and promotion budget with which it actively promotes Member Companies in media and to government entities. Member Companies generally find strong benefit in independently promoting their membership status to current and potential employees and customers, business partners, regulators and the investment community.
Is Membership Open To Private Companies as Well?
Membership is open to both public and private companies for any industry. Non-corporate institutions, such as educational institutions, foundations, and even departments of government are eligible to apply as well.
Who Runs the Business Ethics Leadership Alliance?
The Alliance is overseen by an executive team and set of researchers from the Ethisphere Institute. The Executive Director of BELA is Suzanne Hawkins. Ms. Hawkins was former Senior Counsel, Legal Operations at General Electric Company and Director on the Board of the Association of Corporate Counsel.
Can Asian Companies Join?
Yes, while the majority of members are European and American, membership is open to all companies, regardless of where they operate – so far as they can demonstrably prove a commitment to operating at a high standard when it comes to business ethics.
What If Our Company Does Not Meet Minimum Standards But Wants to Join?
The first step is for a Member Company to embrace and agree to the guiding core ethical principles of the Alliance. If your organization’s compliance and ethics program is not sufficiently mature, there are valuable tools and resources provided to new members that can be used to bring the program into alignment, such as the enterprise cultural and ethics risk software, free consulting and board of director training, and dissemination of best practices. If within a year of joining, a Company cannot prove that it meets the minimum ethical standards and practices set forth by BELA, such Member Company’s membership may be withdrawn.
May a Member Company Later Become Disbarred?
Yes. The Business Ethics Leadership Alliance reserves the right to remove a Member Company from the Alliance on the grounds of: (a) an inability to verify that a Member Company is upholding ethical standards expectations; or (b) egregious unethical behavior, including compliance failures, occurring at the Member Company which should have reasonably been prevented, or which are not remedied within a reasonable timeframe. It is the position of the Alliance that while any and all companies can fall victim to rogue employees, larger compliance and ethical failures are a sign of systemic breakdown and failed leadership.
If a Member Company were to feel that it has been given unfair notice of potential disbarment, it may file motion with the Independent BELA Appeal Board. A Disbarred Member Company may apply for reinstatement after a minimum of 12 months as well as proof that effective remedial action has been taken against the original reason for disbarment.
How Does the Alliance Verify that Member Companies Are Upholding the Principles?
Every two years a Member Company compliance and ethics program and general business operations are audited against the ethical principles and any subsequent guiding framework provided by BELA. There is no fee for doing so. However, in certain circumstances an independent supporting attestation must also be provided from an accredited law, accounting or consulting firm.
How Much Does Membership Cost?
Costs vary by size of Applying Company, ethical track record of Applying Company, BELA services required (if any) for Applying Company to be able to uphold the ethical principles, and perceived future difficulty for BELA to verify Applying Company’s ethics and compliance program.
Does BELA offer any services?
Along with public recognition through marketing and communications opportunities, BELA membership includes tools designed to aid companies’ efforts to promote ethical practices. Supported in part by membership fees, some of these services include attendance at the February 2009 Global Ethics Summit, access to the Ethisphere Enterprise Culture Analytics Software resulting in a Culture Assessment Scorecard, ethics consulting or board of directors training and exclusive direct receipt of reports gathered by the Global Ethics Reporting Hotline.
Does being a member of BELA affect a company’s standing in Ethisphere’s annual rankings?
BELA is separate from Ethisphere’s annual rankings and membership in BELA will not impact the Member Company’s Ethisphere’s rankings.
I Work For an Outside Professional Firm and Would Like to Help Verify that Companies Are Upholding the Principles
If you work for a firm that would like to be involved in verifying that Member Companies (and Applying Companies) are upholding the ethical principles, please Contact Dan Appelson.
