Yesterday I attended the annual Business Ethics Network conference.  Business Ethics Network, or BEN, links together activists and businesspeople who are working to make corporations more responsible.  It’s a great conference that brings together people from the environmental, social justice, labor, public health, and other movements.

I was inspired by the stories we heard – about how the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics has convinced 600 companies to stop using dangerous chemicals in lipstick and other cosmetics, about how our colleagues at Earthworks are leading a corporate campaign to reform destructive gold mining practices, and about how a campaign targeted publishers and printers to make sure Harry Potter would be printed on old-growth-free and recycled paper.  Special kudos go to our friends and colleagues at Forest Ethics – some of the leaders in the corporate campaign world – who earlier this year convinced Victoria’s Secret to stop using old growth pulp from British Columbia to print its catalog.  Even better, Forest Ethics just helped turn its work with Victoria’s Secret into a promise by the British Columbia government to protect 5 million acres of mountain caribou habitat in inland British Columbia.  Amazing!

We’re working to transform corporations as well – from our work in Sakhalin and Alaska to make sure Shell becomes more responsible in its offshore drilling practices to our efforts in California to stop the import of Liquefied Natural Gas, yet another fossil fuel contributing to global warming that we don’t need.  Fighting corporations is only part of the battle.  The other part is transforming the corporations so that they can be responsible and act for the public good.