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 Sometimes sacred lands are threatened by government actions and sometimes by corporations. In Resource Rebels, a book on corporate environmental practices and indigenous peoples around the world, author Al Gedicks concludes, “There is an inseparable connection between massive environmental degradation and widespread human rights violations.” The hidden costs of resource extraction have been ignored for many years, but a campaign to hold corporations accountable is on the rise.
 Recognizing the impact of corporations on these lands, SLFP has produced a comprehensive new report exposing the enormity of the threat. The 80-page report contains six case studies on Indian Pass, Weatherman Draw, Medicine Lake, Black Mesa, Zuni Salt Lake and Cave Rock. Conclusions gleaned from these conflicts yield a number of reasonable steps that corporations and stakeholders can take to avoid conflict around sacred sites, including engagement in meaningful consultation with all interested parties and being willing to take “no” for an answer where alternatives simply do not exist.
“Corporate Accountability” is defined in an NGO statement submitted to the United Nations in 1997: “The aim of corporate accountability is to be sure a company’s products and operations are in the interests of society and not harmful.” A powerful global movement is growing to hold companies that refuse to act in a socially and environmentally responsible way legally accountable for harmful practices.
Corporations are destroying many sacred places, and threatening to destroy others. Peabody Energy is stripmining Black Mesa (AZ) and depleting Hopi springs, Calpine is drilling for geothermal energy at Medicine Lake (CA), and Glamis Imperial wants to dig a giant open-pit cyanide heap-leach gold mine at Indian Pass (CA). On the other hand, the Anschutz Oil Company decided not to drill for oil at Weatherman Draw (MT), and the Salt River Project has relinquished its leases and permits for a new coal stripmine that had threatened to dry up the Zuni’s sacred Salt Lake (NM) — two excellent examples of corporate responsibility.
Main Actors for Corporate Accountability and Corporate Responsibility
Some of the main actors in the movement for corporate accountability and corporate responsibility are:
For thirty years, the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), an international coalition of 275 Protestant, Roman Catholic and Jewish institutional investors, has merged social values with investment decisions. ICCR-member investors sponsor over 100 shareholder resolutions a year on major social and environmental issues in an effort to change unjust or harmful corporate policies, and work for peace, economic justice and stewardship of the Earth. The combined portfolio value of ICCR’s member organizations is estimated at $110 billion. One of the ICCR’s campaigns challenges the use of racially offensive logos, including Native American sports mascots.
A team created by WCC attended the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) and produced a two-page fact sheet, Corporate Accountability - A Matter of Sustainable Justice, which begins: “Of the 15 companies/governments with the world’s largest budgets, 6 are governments, 9 are corporations...Of the 100 largest economies, 51 are now global corporations and 49 are countries.” Also, check out the WCC's Ecumenical Earth project.
Greenpeace has consistently focused on corporate polluters over the years, and recently published The Bhopal Principles on corporate accountability.
Since 1980, the Southwest Organizing Project has worked to “empower communities to realize racial and gender equality and social and economic justice.” Their Web site is an alternative media and organizing tool.
The New Mexico Environmental Law Center works to protect New Mexico’s communities and their environments through public education, legislative initiatives, administrative negotiations and litigation. Since 1987, the Law Center has been providing free or low cost legal services to citizens who otherwise would not have a voice in the complex legal proceedings that directly impact their environment.
The IPCB is organized to assist indigenous peoples protect their genetic resources, traditional knowledge, and cultural and human rights from the negative effects of biotechnology. The IPCB provides educational and technical support to indigenous communities to help protect their biological resources and intellectual property.
Friends of the Earth (FoEI) is a federation of non-governmental organizations from around the world. FoEI members campaign on the most urgent environmental and social issues of the day.
Nautilus Institute’s mission is to solve critical, interrelated global problems by improving the processes and outcomes of global governance. Nautilus Institute for Security & Sustainable Development is involved in working with socially responsible businesses, developing codes of ethics and spearheading a “California Global Corporate Accountability Project.” A new publication, BEYOND GOOD DEEDS: Case Studies and a New Policy Agenda for Corporate Accountability, was released in July 2002.
Global Resource Action Center for the Environment (GRACE) works to form new links with research, policy and grassroots communities to preserve the future of the planet and protect the quality of the environment. One project is fighting against the commodification and corporate ownership of water around the world.
Infact is a national, grassroots, corporate watchdog organization. Founded in 1977, Infact is best known for its successful Nestle and GE Boycott Campaigns, and its new film, Making a Killing. Infact is currently organizing the Tobacco Industry Campaign and the Hall of Shame Campaign.
CERES is a coalition of environmental, investor, and advocacy groups working together for a sustainable future. CERES encourages corporate environmental responsibility by endorsing the CERES Principles. Read the CERES Principles — ten environmental principles for corporations developed by this coalition. In partnership with the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), CERES helped develop the Global Reporting Initiative, a multi-stakeholder process and independent institution whose mission is to develop and disseminate globally applicable Sustainability Reporting Guidelines for evaluating the economic, environmental, and social performance of corporations, governments, and non-government organizations (NGOs).
Leon H. Sullivan (1922-2001) worked throughout his life challenging racial discrimination in hiring practices in the U.S. and abroad. In 1971, Sullivan became the first African American appointed to the Board of Directors of a Fortune 500 company when he accepted a seat on General Motors' board. He used his position to launch an international campaign to reform apartheid in South Africa, developing the Sullivan Principles, a code of conduct for human rights and equal opportunity for companies operating in South Africa. The Sullivan Principles are considered one of the most effective efforts to end discrimination against blacks in the workplace in South Africa, thus directly contributing to the dismantling of apartheid. The objectives of the Global Sullivan Principles are to support economic, social and political justice by companies where they do business; to support human rights and encourage equal opportunity at all levels of employment, including racial and gender diversity on decision-making committees and boards; to train and advance disadvantaged workers for technical, supervisory and management opportunities; and to assist with greater tolerance and understanding among peoples, thereby helping to improve the quality of life for communities, workers and children.
The Integrative Strategies Forum was created to encourage and promote creative dialogue, partnerships, and integrative action strategies among networks and organizations working to build sustainable local and global communities and societies. Their Corporate Accountability Program works primarily through coordination of the NGO Task Force on Business & Industry (ToBI) to promote and implement corporate accountability within government, business and civil society.
Rights Action raises funds for community development, human rights and emergency relief projects in southern Mexico, Central America and Peru. They also educate in North America about global development and human rights issues, and work to form north-south alliances of people and organizations to remedy endemic impoverishment, repression and racism.
Within the business community, many members are working to promote corporate responsibility. Key players include:
Business for Social Responsiblity (BSR) is a global, nonprofit organization that helps member companies achieve commercial success in ways that respect people, ethical values, communities and the environment. BSR member companies have nearly $2 trillion in combined annual revenues and employ more than six million workers around the world. BSR has developed a training session on “Building Effective Relationships with Indigenous Communities (PDF).”
Calvert is a socially responsible investment fund founded in 1976, Calvert has been a leader in promoting corporate responsibility through its investments, social screening and shareholder advocacy programs. Calvert's Corporate Responsibility Matters campaign is an initiative designed to help contribute to healthier companies, stronger markets, and better investments by striving for integrity-driven investments, encouraging open and honest reporting, building boards that look like America, championing engaged shareownership, promoting sound business practices and public policies. The Calvert Social Index is a broad-based, rigorously constructed benchmark for measuring the performance of large, U.S.-based socially responsible companies. Calvert has prepared an Issues Brief on Indigenous Peoples’ Rights.
This analyst network supports more than 100 North American social investment research analysts from 30 investment firms, research providers, and affiliated investor groups. Social research analysts evaluate corporate policies and performance on various issues of corporate social responsibility (CSR), including environment, health and safety, diversity and human resources policies, and human rights and the supply chain. SIRAN provides professional support to investment research analysts.
KLD promotes global socially responsible investing by providing corporate social research products and services to institutional investors. KLD supplies social investment research, indexes, compliance and consulting services to investment institutions worldwide. Their online application provides portfolio screening tools, research reports and ratings based on social and environmental factors for more than 3,000 companies. KLD's family of socially responsible benchmark and strategy indexes include the Domini 400 SocialSM Index (DS 400 Index), the world's first index to benchmark the performance of equity portfolios subject to multiple social screens.
A personal finance Web site devoted to socially responsible investing.
SocialFunds.com features over 10,000 pages of information on SRI mutual funds, community investments, corporate research, shareowner actions, and daily social investment news.
This national nonprofit membership organization promotes the concept, practice and growth of socially responsible investing. Their Web site offers information, contacts and resources on socially responsible investing. SIF co-sponsors the annual professional conference SRI in the Rockies with First Affirmative Financial Network, an independent investment advisory firm that supports a nationwide network of investment professionals who specialize in helping clients engage in socially responsible investing, providing consulting and asset management services for institutions seeking to integrate mission and values into investment strategy and decision making.
Other Corporate Accountability Resources:
A variety of quick weblinks to help you explore campaign contributions and voting records of elected officials in your area. Investigate how corporations influence our laws and legislators.
Declarations, Resolutions and Laws
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan first proposed The Global Compact in an address to the World Economic Forum in January 1999. Annan challenged world business leaders to help build the social and environmental pillars required to sustain the international economy and make globalization work for all of the world’s people. The Global Compact is not a regulatory instrument or code of conduct, but a value-based platform designed to promote institutional learning. The compact utilizes the power of transparency and dialogue to identify and disseminate good practices based on universal principles. Unfortunately, it is a voluntary agreement with no monitoring or enforcement.
In March 2002, while preparing for the Earth Summit in Johanessburg, progressive activists met in Girona, Spain for a strategy conference, “Rio+10 and Beyond: Strategies Against the Greenwash of Corporate Globalisation.” The Girona Declaration - From Rio to Johannesburg (May 29, 2002) is the product of that conference, and it is a powerful statement on the urgent need for real corporate accountability. The declaration warns that “corporations are working to open up nature itself to commodification and privitisation - air, water and the genetic building blocks of life are being turned into tradeable goods.”
In May 2002, the California Supreme Court issued a decision restricting Nike Inc.’s “commercial free speech.” The case cuts to the core of meaningful discussion about the role of corporations in a democracy.
Socially Responsible Businesses You Can Support
Working Assets is a long distance, credit card, Internet services and broadcasting company that donates a portion of its revenue to nonprofit groups working for peace, human rights, equality, education and the environment. The company also serves as a strong political force, dedicated to giving its customers the opportunity to speak out on critical public issues.
Founded in 1993, Earth Tones is the only long distance phone service entirely owned and operated by non-profit environmental organizations, allowing them to direct 100% of profits to grassroots environmental work.
A valuable Web site with links to organizations that promote socially responsible business.
Can Mining Be Sustainable?
The mining industry has long practiced the rapid extraction of non-renewable resources, but it apparently wants to be seen as sustainable, so its corporate members are investing considerable resources in a public relations campaign to project that image. The Mining, Minerals and Sustainable Development Project (MMSD) of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) recently issued “Breaking New Ground: Mining, Minerals and Sustainable Development.” The document contains an interesting section on indigenous peoples.
In contrast, read a statement issued by indigenous people from around the world (PDF) who gathered at the 2002 Johanessburg Earth Summit in response to a new partnership forged by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM).
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