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Crowne Plaza Hotel, Brussels, 25-26 January
2007
The Institute of Business Ethics (IBE) of the UK, the Ethics
& Compliance Officers Association (ECOA) of the US, the
Cercle D'Éthique des Affaires - Cercle Européen
des Déontologues (CEA-CED) of France and the European
Business Ethics Network (EBEN) held the fourth European conference
for ethics and compliance practitioners, this year in Brussels.
Sharing Ideas and Best Practices in Business Ethics was held
on 25-27 January 2007 at 'Le Palace' Crowne Plaza Hotel. Over
120 corporate ethics practitioners from 12 countries from
Europe, Africa and the US attended. The participants came
from a range of industries, including information technology,
telecommunications, oil and gas, defence, banking and finance,
utilities, automotive, retail, and healthcare.
The conference provided a unique opportunity for ethics and
compliance practitioners to meet their counterparts, share
ideas and best practices, as well as experiences and different
approaches. This conference forms the basis for a continuing
dialogue among ethics and compliance professionals in organisations.
The conference agenda was designed to allow maximum time for
discussion, debate, and networking and it began with an informal
cocktail party for participants to get to know one another.
A plenary meeting was held at the start of each day. These
were followed by a series of breakout sessions. Each of these
were introduced with a case study from a participating company.
A rapporteur presented a summary of the group's discussion
during a subsequent 'report back' sessions. This approach
ensured that all attendees could hear and discuss the main
points from each of the workshops.
The first plenary session was on the subject of Doing business
in a difficult part of the world. Two speakers shared their
personal experiences of doing business ethically in Asia.
Peter Verhezen, CIMAD Consulting (Indonesia) began by comparing
relationship based governance in Asia with the contract-based
governance of the west and the significance of this for reputation.
Michael Hougard Pederson, Novozymes (Denmark) also spoke about
the Chinese perception of corruption and what makes anti-corruption
measures effective.
The morning's breakout sessions were as follows:
- Evaluating the effectiveness of an ethics programme:
Using employee surveys and other ways of measuring effectiveness
of corporate ethics programmes
- Integrating the ethics function into an organization:
Making ethical values relevant to different functional
areas
- Experience with Board - Executive level - ethics committees
Examples of good practice concerning reporting and monitoring
on ethics policies
- How to raise and sustain ethics awareness:
Effective ethics awareness raising techniques; including
using case studies and ethical dilemmas in ethics training
The afternoon's breakout sessions were on the following topics:
- Can you really avoid facilitation payments in parts of
the world?
How does it work in practice? Controlling agents, reporting
requests etc.
- Ethical issues arising from business relations between
large and small organisations
How can smaller companies sustain business ethics policies
in partnership with larger companies in their supply chain?
- Ethical due diligence: a way forward
Assessing ethical standards of joint venture partners
and contractors
- How do ethics and CSR come together?
How do different companies relate their different policies?
Is CSR an easy option?
That evening a reception and dinner was held at the Belgian
Centre for Comic Strip Art, considered to be one of the masterpieces
of the most famous Belgian Art Nouveau architect, Victor Horta.
Sue Bird, Policy Coordinator at the DG of Employment, Social
Affairs and Equal Opportunities of the European Commission
spoke of the Commission's approach to CSR and the mechanisms
in place to support it. She explained that the DG would be
responsive to the demands of business in this area. She also
felt the need for a clearer understanding of the relationship
between ethics, CSR and sustainable development.
The next day, the second plenary session was on the topic
of The Role of Ombudsmen in Business Ethics. Steve Cordery
from United Technologies Corporation (USA) gave a background
to the role of the ombudsman and explained how his role fits
with other Speak Up programmes at UTC. Steve talked about
the need for managers to have a good radar system fuelled
by excellent information systems. Ombudsman can supply very
early warnings on the radar. The ombudsman is distinctive
in that he is independent of all management structures and
is neutral, guarantees confidentiality, and is available to
any stakeholder. Jadu Sen, British Petroleum (UK) stepped
in at the last minute to present the role of OpenTalk, BP's
compliance and ethics helpline, which is supported by 8 regional
ombudsmen. The ombudsman's role is to address concerns in
connection with the code, independently and according to a
set of standards that protects from retaliation.
The final breakout sessions were on the following topics:
- Ethics and the multi-ethnic workforce within companies
Issues that arise from implementing a policy. For example:
diversity; cultural norms; anti-discrimination
- Crisis management: What happens when things go wrong?
The role (if any) of the ethics function
- Integrating adherence to codes of ethics into European
employee contracts-benefits and drawbacks
Examples from continental Europe
Breakout topics were introduced by the following companies:
Allied Irish Bank, Deutsche Telekom, T-Systems, EDF, Kraft
Foods International, Van de Velde NV, Shell International,
Novartis AG,Total, Merck & Company Inc, Solvay.
Rapporteurs were from BP, Shell International B.V, ag2r,
Avaya , EBEN, IBE, Serco, GSK, KPMG, Fortis
Translation services were kindly sponsored by EDF.
The conference was conducted under the Chatham House Rule.
A fuller conference report is available to participants.
The 2008 Sharing Ideas and Best Practice Conference will
be held in London on 16-18 January 2008.
For further details, please contact: info@ibe.org.uk
Download Programme
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