News | Meetings | Articles

Vision Statement

C4CR envisions a world in which corporations work for a just, peaceful and sustainable global society.

Mission Statement

To transform the legal purpose of corporations to include responsibility to employees, communities and the environment.

News

New Minnesota Bill for Socially Responsible Corporations Introduced

February 2007
Chief Authors Senator John Marty and Representative Bill Hilty introduced the bill as Senate File 1153 and House File 404.

The bill creates a new section of law for an alternative kind of corporation, the SR (socially responsible) corporation.

1. Directors will have an affirmative duty to all stakeholders,
2. Employees and representatives of the public interest will be on the Board of Directors,
3. Directors will be protected from shareholder suits when they choose to consider other stakeholders and the public interest,
4. Socially Responsible investors and consumers will know where to invest their money, and
5. Socially Responsible Companies will be protected from hostile takeover.

Training in Nonviolent Communication
Citizens for Corporate Redesign is integrating the process of Nonviolent Communication into its internal processes, its communication with others and its framing, The following training is available for those who want to learn more about Nonviolent Communication:

Practice Groups on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays
[LEARN MORE]

Brief Videos Introduction to NVC
Marshall Rosenberg videos: http://www.bigpicture.tv/search/marshall_rosenberg

Our Bill for Socially Responsible Corporations Has Been Introduced in Hawaii As HB3118
As of March 2, 2006 the bill has passed two House Committees in Hawaii. To read the Hawaiian version and check on current status enter
HB3118 at the HAWAII STATE LEGISLATURE site.

Newsletters
Newsletter Vol. 1, Issue 1: August 1, 2005

Resources
Presented at the May 1, 2004 Living Green Expo by John Karvel
Click to Read the list of Resource

Corporation 2020 Website
A Project of the Tellus Institute and Business Ethics
Corporation 2020 is a new, multi-stakeholder initiative to develop and advocate for corporate designs that sustain social purpose. The initiative is rooted in the premise that societal expectations and needs in the 21st century demand a major elevation in corporate contributions to urgent global imperatives—economic, environmental, and social. In the face of both peril and promise for global futures, it is no longer enough to ask, “What is the business case for social responsibility?” The question, instead, must be, “What is the social purpose case for business?”

In the past, the debate surrounding the future of the corporation has been narrowly defined as one between government regulation and free markets. Corporation 2020 posits a third path: system redesign. It is a path that recognizes the historical and legitimate public role in corporate design; the necessity of respecting universal values while recognizing the drawbacks of unnecessarily intrusive government; and the ingenuity but intrinsic deficiencies of voluntarism and unfettered markets. Reaching beyond mainstream corporate social responsibility (CSR), Corporation 2020 will chart a path that embeds social purpose in the organizational “DNA” while helping to catalyze and fortify durable, high-performing enterprises.
www.corporation2020.org

What Our Bill For Socially Responsible Corporations Does
To read what the bill accomplishes (in a bullet point format) please click here.

The Code in the United Kingdom
The Corporate Responsibility Coalition in UK is seeking to enact a law that is very similar to our C4CR (http://www.corporate-responsibility.org).

Meetings & Engagements

Our Next General Meeting
Monday, February 25th: 6:30 PM
1716 Atwater Path E., Inver Grove Heights, MN 55077
VISITORS ARE WELCOME.
Come learn about our new bill and how to support it.
See our website for a map: http://www.c4cr.org/nextmeeting.html

Articles

The Story of Stuff
With Annie Leonard
December 2007
"The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard" is an engaging new short film that explains the "materials economy" in 20 fun-filled minutes. The Story of Stuff features Annie Leonard, amusing graphics, lots of humor, and a complicated analysis presented in an easy-to-understand conversational tone. http://www.storyofstuff.com/index.html

New Principles for Corporate Law
By Kent Greenfield, Professor of Law, Boston College Law School
February 16,2005
The fundamental assumptions of corporate law have changed little in decades. Accepted as truth are the notions that corporations are voluntary, private, contractual entities; that they have broad powers to make money in whatever ways and in whatever locations they see fit; that the primary obligation of management is toward shareholders, and shareholders alone. Corporations have broad powers but only a limited role: they are entities that have as their primary objective the making of money. Not much else is expected or required of them. [READ MORE]

The Ethical Advantage
By James A. Mitchell, February 2003
According to a Harvard Business School Study, ethical firms which consider additional stakeholders outperform those which do not. "Over an eleven-year period, the former increased revenues by an average of 682% versus 166% for the latter, expanded their work forces by 282% versus 36%, grew their stock prices by 901% versus 74%, and improved their net incomes by 756% versus 1%." [READ "THE ETHICAL ADVANTAGE"]

Let's Change The DNA Of Corporations
By John Karvel, July 29th, 2002
Why is it that in the law corporations have the single purpose of making a profit for the shareholders? Isn't it obvious that there are more stakeholders that make up the corporate community? Analysis shows that employees are really the major contributors to creating wealth. The communities in which corporations operate have much to gain or lose, depending on how responsibly the corporations there operate. And the environment, our environment, has everything at stake.

President Bush's Economic Forum
Ron James, August 13 , 2002
Ron James, CEO of the Center for Ethical Business Culture in Minneapolis, MN, was able to speak when the President was present. He told the President "that business leaders do two things very well". One, "they are concerned about all of their stakeholders". Two, "they balance long and short-term trade offs. They create value for the shareholder over the long-term by serving all of these stakeholders. Reports and studies show that companies that practice this grow revenues four times as fast, workforce eight times as fast and stock prices twelve times as fast as companies that don't. It is not about doing either or. You can do both. You can create an ethical environment that serves multiple stakeholders but can insure your are creating value for the shareholders." [READ MORE]

The Code for Corporate Responsibility:
Widening the Perspective of Management
A Paper for Robert J. Milano School of Management and Urban Policy
New School University
By Gili Chupak, May 2004

In this paper, I have researched corporate responsibility. What is it? How do we get there? And what is blocking us from arriving at corporate responsibility? I used a whole systems perspective in order to determine the most effective strategies. I described each strategy based on its ability to impact responsible corporate behavior using the leverage point categorizations offered by the whole systems analysis. I limited my analysis of the strategies to the framework of law to accommodate the mission of C4CR. [READ MORE]

[Go to our Articles Page to read more articles]

[Read Corporation 2020 documents pertaining to various aspects of corporate design]

[Read additional articles at the Center for Ethical Business Cultures website that demostrate the financial advantage experienced by ethical businesses]