Month: November 2020

Recent growth in membership reflects a growing desire of leading companies to improve corporate integrity during a time of unprecedented disruption

New York, NY – November 18, 2020 – Ethisphere, a global leader in defining and advancing standards of ethical business practices, announced today that 19 companies have recently joined the more than 300 existing members of the Business Ethics Leadership Alliance (BELA). Founded by Ethisphere, BELA is a 300+ member strong globally recognized organization of leading companies collaborating together to share best practices in governance, risk management, compliance, and ethics.

As the threat of COVID-19 continues to demand work-from-home environments and urgent changes to business strategy, this growth in membership rewards the community with new shared insights that enable organizations to continue placing values and integrity at the center of all that they do.

The complete list of new companies joining BELA includes:

• ABM Industries
• Altán Redes
• Aramark Corporation
• Brown-Forman Corporation
• Capital Power
• Charoen Pokphand Group Co., Ltd.
• CNA Insurance
• Frontera Energy
• KeyBank
• Novant Health
• Ohio Health
• Owens Corning
• Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company
• Reckitt Benckiser Inc.
• Selective Insurance Group, Inc.
• Spirit AeroSystems
• UNT Health Science Center
• Verisign Inc.

Based on the continued demands from the community to connect and engage with notable faculty and experts at academic institutions, BELA is pleased to also welcome the University of Texas at Austin to its existing roster of high-level educational institutions. The immersion of academic involvement provides universities with the opportunity to leverage all Ethisphere and BELA content, practical tools, data-driven insights, and more into their curriculum to aid in building the next generation of purpose-driven leaders, as well as share their own research and expertise with the community of leaders.

“Whether an organization is new to BELA or a long-standing member, we are seeing that all are rigorously pursuing ethics and compliance in a way that measurably improves business performance, despite the obstacles a worldwide pandemic has created,” said Kevin McCormack, Executive Director, BELA. “This year has been an unprecedented exercise in agility and vigilance. Through Ethisphere’s program benchmarks and unrivaled data set, BELA members are putting this information to use in new ways as they adjust their strategies and plan for new compliance challenges. BELA is arguably more unified than it has ever been, with an exceptional level of global peer support and an array of resources to help them along each of their journeys.”

“Whether it is focusing on diversity and inclusion efforts to ensure we attract top talent or making compliance and ethics a differentiator as we strive to remain among the best insurance underwriting companies, CNA has a story, and we look forward to sharing our strategies with fellow BELA members,” said Garrett Williams, Sr. Vice President & Chief Compliance Officer at CNA Insurance. “We are equally anxious to hear from other experts in the fields of CSR, compliance, and ethics to learn the best practices being executed on a global level. The growth of BELA has been astounding, and we are pleased to add CNA Insurance to an already impressive roster.”

“At Aramark, we strive to create a better world by considering the company’s environmental, economic, social, and ethical dimensions,” said Tamsin Fast, Chief Compliance Officer, Aramark. “Our commitment to sustainability, to doing the right thing always, begins with integrity. As we consider our membership in BELA, we are pleased to be part of a community that prioritizes purpose and understands its vital impact on the bottom line.”

The more than 300 BELA member companies represent more than 60 industries headquartered in 15 different countries. It has become a pivotal platform of connected leadership dedicated to progressing company standards and practices across global and regional business ecosystems. Driven by a global desire to advance integrity and improve business performance, in 2017 BELA expanded to South Asia. The South Asia Chapter includes a community of select Founding Member companies and “integrity partners” who have taken on a leadership role in inspiring best practices in ethics, integrity, and anti-corruption efforts across India and South Asia. Applying a similar model, BELA’s new chapter expansion has reached the Americas, Europe, and most recently Asia Pacific.

BELA Member Benefits—Request Guest Access

BELA members receive enterprise-wide access to the BELA Member Hub—a premier repository of key resources featuring examples of work, presentations, and research provided by BELA companies that are intended to cultivate the exchange of ideas and provide inspiration for companies to continuously improve in the area of ethics and compliance. To enable executive decision-making and resource calibration, members also have the opportunity to measure their own programs through data-driven benchmarking as an independent evaluation of ethics and compliance programs and analysis of best practices relative to other leading companies’ programs. To request guest access to the BELA Member Hub, click here.

Founded by Ethisphere, the Business Ethics Leadership Alliance (BELA) is a globally recognized organization of leading companies collaborating together to share best practices in governance, risk management, compliance, and ethics. BELA’s membership has since grown to a large community of companies who recognize the inherent value of promoting ethical leadership and world-class compliance culture. Learn more about BELA by visiting http://bela.ethisphere.com. To nominate a company to join BELA, contact Director of Member Engagement Sarah Neumann at [email protected].

 About Ethisphere 

The Ethisphere® Institute is the global leader in defining and advancing the standards of ethical business practices that fuel corporate character, marketplace trust, and business success. Ethisphere has deep expertise in measuring and defining core ethics standards using data-driven insights that help companies enhance corporate character. Ethisphere honors superior achievement through its World’s Most Ethical Companies® recognition program, provides a community of industry experts with the Business Ethics Leadership Alliance (BELA), and showcases trends and best practices in ethics with Ethisphere Magazine. Ethisphere also helps to advance business performance through data-driven assessments, benchmarking, and guidance. More information about Ethisphere can be found at https://ethisphere.com

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Media Contact

​Aarti Maharaj​
​[email protected]
@Ethisphere​​

Global multinationals reaffirm their commitment to making a difference with practical tools, data, and resources to guide their strategic and tactical direction

New York, NY – November 10, 2020 – Ethisphere, a global leader in defining and advancing standards of ethical business practices, announced today that a growing quorum of multinational companies from the Business Ethics Leadership Alliance (BELA), a globally recognized organization, are stepping up to reaffirm their commitment to advancing and preserving integrity around the globe.

The global pandemic, compounded by macro-level conditions such as racial injustice, geopolitical gaps, and economic instability, has created new fissures in all corners of the globe. As the threat of COVID-19 continues to demand work from home environments and urgent changes to business strategy, companies are creating opportunities to connect and support one another to develop new practices that reshape conventional wisdom.

The “Pinnacle” members of the BELA community in many ways have taken the lead to ensure that business, compliance, and ethics leaders in pivotal global markets can sustain a level of knowledge-sharing and benchmarking—which have faced many obstacles in 2020. Undeterred, the companies have discovered and shared their innovations with hundreds of organizations worldwide with access to unparalleled Ethisphere data, ethical culture assessments, public advocacy, and consistent peer-to-peer conversations. Under the leadership of the Pinnacle members, BELA has worked across the Americas, South Asia, Asia Pacific, and Europe to create an ecosystem conducive to coming out of the pandemic better than before.

Those companies representing Pinnacle BELA members include:

• 3M
• AT&T
• Bayer AG
• Boeing
• Coca-Cola
• Dell
• GE
• Honeywell
• Intel
• Kimberly-Clark
• Marriott
• Uber
• Western Digital Corporation

Under the direction of the Pinnacle member companies, BELA has established new hallmarks for its community, most recently with the formation of an Advisory Council that is overseeing an initiative on Equity & Social Justice. This initiative will include frank conversations with leaders and new research through which important issues such as pay equity, diversity transparency, measurable data, community impact, and more that will inspire companies to mobilize and take firm action with a clear purpose.

“BELA has long been at the center for any new working group, event, or resource we develop at Ethisphere. What the Pinnacle companies have enabled us to do is hone in on the need to expand the focus of integrity and business performance into additional markets where companies have just as much need, if not more, than their US-based counterparts,” said Kevin McCormack, Executive Director, BELA. “The leadership from our Pinnacle members—and across our entire BELA community, for that matter—has actually proven to be one of elevated engagement precisely at those moments when you anticipated everyone would disengage in a historically troubling environment. These companies have demonstrated in so many ways how to respond to a crisis by not putting integrity ‘on pause.’ Rather, they have invested in how each can adapt and transform so they are better equipped for the future and doing so in a way that their people do not lose their humanity along the way, which is empowering their people and the communities in which they work.”

Kimberly-Clark, a global manufacturer with well-known brands such as Huggies, Cottonelle, Scott, Kotex, Depend, Kleenex, and Andrex, prides itself on its upstander – as opposed to a bystander – culture that encourages the company’s 40,000 employees to take a stand when they encounter improper behavior.

“Everything we do at Kimberly-Clark is motivated by our vision to lead the world in essentials for a better life, and this starts with our people. We continue to foster a culture of care where each of our employees is empowered to use their voice to bring issues to light and create change,” said Kurt Drake, Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer at Kimberly-Clark. “This culture is underpinned by our belief that maintaining high levels of ethics, business integrity, and compliance is the only way we can grow our business and deliver essential products to our consumers around the globe.”

In the spirit of collaboration and to help empower the broader business community, Pinnacle members also serve on a series of executive BELA committees and year-round global working groups for the South Asia and Asia Pacific Chapters of BELA. Projects and pan-industry insights in these regions are driven by these multinational companies and are topically aligned to focus on key risk areas such as inclusion, cybersecurity, data privacy, supplier integrity, conflicts of interest, harassment, and more.

“As the second-most populous country in the world and one of the fastest-growing economies, India has an incredible influence on the global business ecosystem. Considering this, at Honeywell India, we value the Pinnacle membership with BELA that helps us share best practices and benchmark the program with our peers,” said Piya Haldar, Director of Integrity and Compliance, Honeywell India. “Our company culture demands a commitment to the highest standards of integrity, and every employee is focused on upholding this, even during these challenging times. At no other time in our history has the need for a united front been more apparent. This is where we all need to come together with BELA and address challenges related to the global pandemic.”

Honeywell and Intel currently serve on a working committee designed to capture data on the impact of remote work on compliance in India—an emerging area of concern with impending legislation set to take shape in 2021. This report is slated for release in January. Preliminary data findings were shared at the recent South Asia Ethics Summit.

“The international community truly understands the value of demonstrating ethics and integrity on a global stage, including the South Asia BELA community, which has expanded significantly in both membership and commitment since its creation only three years ago,” said Aarti Maharaj, Managing Director, South Asia, and Asia Pacific. “If there is a silver lining to the pandemic, which is currently having a significant impact in India and throughout Asia, it is that while the world is socially distancing for health and safety reasons, the business community is coming together for economic security.”

To date, the Founding Members of the BELA South Asia Chapter have developed a series of resources, toolkits, and topically targeted working groups, which cover areas such as Prevention of Sexual Harassment (PoSH), supply chain risk management, and more. Most recently, the chapter released the third annual BELA South Asia magazine, with insights and experiences from a diverse selection of companies across India—some of which have been in business for hundreds of years and remain committed to improving business ethics during times of crisis.

In early 2020, a BELA South Asia working group guided efforts to launch a customizable Supplier Toolkit, which includes sample policies, data, case studies, and thought leadership to equip leaders with the information they need to help rebuild the supply chain. Previously, under the guidance of leaders from Hindustan Coca-Cola, GE, Johnson Controls, Cummins, Infosys, and Accenture, members came together to launch the first-of-its-kind PoSH Best Practices research report, which takes a closer look at communications, training, and retaliation around PoSH compliance. The community also launched the India Business Case Deck that highlights the importance of embracing ethics and good governance as a competitive business advantage.

About BELA

Founded by Ethisphere, the Business Ethics Leadership Alliance (BELA) is a globally recognized organization of leading companies collaborating together to share best practices in governance, risk management, compliance, and ethics. BELA’s membership has since grown to a large community of companies who recognize the inherent value of promoting ethical leadership and world-class compliance culture. Learn more about BELA by visiting http://bela.ethisphere.com. To nominate a company to join BELA, contact Director of Member Engagement Sarah Neumann at [email protected].

About Ethisphere

The Ethisphere® Institute is the global leader in defining and advancing the standards of ethical business practices that fuel corporate character, marketplace trust, and business success. Ethisphere has deep expertise in measuring and defining core ethics standards using data-driven insights that help companies enhance corporate character. Ethisphere honors superior achievement through its World’s Most Ethical Companies® recognition program, provides a community of industry experts with the Business Ethics Leadership Alliance (BELA), and showcases trends and best practices in ethics with Ethisphere Magazine. Ethisphere also helps to advance business performance through data-driven assessments, benchmarking, and guidance. More information about Ethisphere can be found at https://ethisphere.com.

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Media Contact

Stefan Linssen​​, Chief Content Officer
[email protected]
@Ethisphere