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Four business ethics organisations joined
forces to create the first ever European conference for ethics and compliance
practitioners, Sharing Ideas and Best Practices in Business Ethics, which
was held at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers (CNAM) in Paris,
France, on 29-30 January 2004. The event organisers were the Cercle
D'Éthique des Affaires - Cercle
Européen des Déontologues (CEA-CED) of France, the Ethics
Officer Association (EOA) of the United States, the European
Business Ethics Network (EBEN), and the Institute of Business
Ethics (IBE) of the UK.
Almost 100 corporate ethics practitioners from
nine European countries*, the U.S., and Japan attended the one and a half day
event. The conference provided an opportunity for ethics and compliance practitioners
to meet their counterparts, share ideas and best practices, and form the basis
for a continuing dialogue among ethics and compliance professionals in organisations.
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 overwhelming majority of the delegates gave
the event a high rating and voted in favour of having another conference no later
than 2005. In addition, a number of people asked to register for the meeting after
it was fully subscribed. As a result, the hosts of the event committed to organising
a second conference to take place at some point next year and possibly sooner
if there is sufficient interest. The conference was designed to allow maximum
time for discussion, debate, and networking. A few short plenary and panel discussion
sessions set the scene for in-depth deliberations during a series of breakout
groups. Each breakout session had a moderator, who in turn appointed a rapporteur
(reporter) to present a summary of the group's discussion during subsequent report-out
sessions for all participants. This approach ensured that all attendees could
hear and discuss the main points from each of the workshops. The opening
plenary on the first day addressed the issues of the differences in business ethics
language, meaning, and approach in diverse countries. It also included a presentation
by François Loos, French Minister of Foreign Trade. A plenary on the second
day addressed the role of public authorities in business ethics. Speakers and
panel members included representatives from Baxter International, Bertelsmann,
Daimler Chrysler, Dow Corning, Statoil, and Zurich Financial Services. The
breakout sessions addressed a number of key business ethics issues facing today's
organisations, as follows: - The job description and responsibilities
of a corporate ethics practitioner
- How to embed values into an organisation
- Cross-cultural
issues
- The relationship of ethics to other business functions
- Ethics
training and communication
- Implementing a code of conduct or ethics
- Internal
ethics and compliance auditing
- Whistle blowing and investigations
Breakout
session moderators were representatives from AES Corporation, Bertelsmann, General
Electric Medical Systems, O2, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Sun Microsystems, and Total.
Rapporteurs were from AGF, Alcoa, CEA/CED, Diageo, Dow Corning, DVV, Hewlett-Packard,
and Zurich Financial Services. Key themes that emerged from the conference
included values-based versus rules-based approaches to ethics; how multinational
companies can implement ethics programmes globally; approaches to ethics training;
and how to measure and monitor performance.
*Belgium,
Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom.
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