Do Diligence is a multifaceted approach designed to assess and ensure the highest standards of responsible management. It enables corporations not only to diagnose their ethical dilemmas, identify and test risk, and reduce vulnerabilities, but also to provide ongoing, high quality ethics guidance and support system-- both for the corporation or organization as well as for its individual employees. The program operates anywhere in the world  that an employee finds him- or her-self with a dilemma. Selecting a suitable partner requires doing ethical, sustainable and legal due diligence or in the ethics business,

INTERNAL ETHICAL DUE DILIGENCE
 
Reputations are enhanced, employees motivated, operational budgets lowered, and satisfaction levels heightened when companies can ensure that Standards are practiced throughout one's supply chain. Third parties such as suppliers, donors, consultants and partners can enhance your organization's  performance when their practices align with your own.

SUPPLY CHAIN ETHICAL DUE DILIGENCE 

There are many ways that organizations can empower staff, contractors, suppliers , consultants and others to improve their sustainability, reputation and ethics quotient. Could your company, business or industry association lead in a fundamental way? Could you be an original pioneer in quantifying and making a business case for sustainability? Could you develop an integrated leadership strategy to set yourself up as not only a willing exponent and sponsor but also a leader for sustainability and the New Economy? In the process, you could demonstrate a serious effort to manage risk, a readiness to measure, monitor and help make the public case for sustainability, and commit to encourage or champion accountability, sustainability and CSR. 
 
Corporate Accountability & Responsibility Leadership
Sustainability Self Audit
Multi-Stakeholder Reaction
The Scoping Report Team
EthicsAssurance

Read the EthicsAssurance FAQ
See sample Comparative Tools  

 

EthicsAssurance is the first integrated, web-based tool that allows businesses, government agencies, associations, and other types of organizations to assess their strengths and improve their weaknesses  in the fields of good governance, economic integrity, ethical risk management, and progressive human relations practices.

Visit the EthicsAssurance.org website.
Download the EthicsAssurance.org brochure. (PDF - 312k)

A state-of-the-art social or ethics audit has seven key components, each of which is described here (PDF). Taken together, they represent a significant enhancement upon either an employee attitudinal or opinion ("climate survey") study, or an organizational review. These components apply to business, government, and non-governmental organizations. Audits Components: 1. Document Review 2. Benchmarking 3. Environmental Scan 4. Stakeholder Surveys 5. Action-Enabling Recommendations 6. Disclosure and External Verification 7. Conclusion

EthicScan believes it is the leading North American practitioner of integrated social, triple bottom line, and ethics audits. While public and independent verification of audits are ideal, most of the audits conducted in Canada are still proprietary, with only portions made publicly available. A copy of an international list of 225 audits as compiled by EthicScan and AccountAbility is available by contacting EthicScan. Further Resources: There are a number of articles in The Corporate Ethics Monitor that analyze social and ethical accounting, auditing, assurance and reporting in more depth. More Popular Reprints include M08 Ethical Assurance Tools (1995) David Nitkin CO7 Ethics Tests and Ethics Audits (1993) Len Brooks CO3 Ethics Audits and Ethics Assurance (1996) David Nitkin T05 Sustainability Auditing (1997) David Nitkin Y03 Social Audits (2000) Howard Bogach and Larry Gordon

 

Somewhere between 60 and 70% of all corporate responsibility partnerships fail. The reasons are many,
but the often sad results are that objectives  aren't met, service clients are disappointed, and reputations diminished. For twenty years EthicScan has been providing research, guidance and education tools to help companies, governments and civil society organizations in all stages of partnering-- planning their partnership policies, training staff on all aspects of negotiating partnerships, establishing and monitoring goals, setting processes for external reporting and internal communications, and measuring results. In some cases we have been working with clients for over fifteen years.

MORE INFO

 

If you're seeking corporate funding or partners, you join 2,000 other not-for-profits who send a solicitation monthly to Canadian companies.  Not surprisingly, few respond. What would be helpful is narrowing your contact list to companies who already give in your area of advocacy, who  are looking for partnership opportunities in your area of service, and whose practices are consistent with your values. Through a customized potential contributors and sponsors report, EthicScan can identify corporations whose social, labour, environmental, and donations practices are compatible with the goals of your organization. If you specify your criteria, we can provide at no obligation an estimated cost for a helpful PASS FAIL REPORT of the names and addresses of higher probability corporate donors, supporters or sponsors.

SAMPLE PASS FAIL REPORT 

Customized Partnership Screening Reports are commissioned from EthicScan by third parties such as suppliers, donors and partners for companies on which they wish to receive information. These reports are also commissioned by not-for-profit agencies or organizations that companies are investigating as a community-based partner. The following is a sample of a recently completed Partnership Screening Report, prepared exclusively for the use of <IDENTITY CONCEALED>.

SAMPLE PARTNERSHIP SCREENING REPORT 

For more information on either type of report, please contact us, or you can order here.

Ethics Consulting

There are many internal communications, governance and decision-assisting mechanisms that could be suggested for use in enhancing ethics in corporations. Examples include

Ethics Guidance:  A Code of Ethics; an ethics column in the company newsletter; ethics as a component of Performance Appraisals; an office of Ethics Ombudsperson; statements of responsibility to stakeholders; Social Responsibility committee of the Board; international ethics codes and policies; ethical partnering policies.

Ethics Training:  Ethics as part of staff orientation; materials case-based ethics training; an on-line ethics advisory; on-going ethics refresher training; ethics training for directors; an annual Health, Safety and Environment report to employees; criteria for adviser's referral to an independent investigator.

Ethics Reinforcement:  Ethics as part of staff orientation; materials case-based ethics training; an on-line ethics advisory; on-going ethics refresher training; ethics training for directors; an annual Health, Safety and Environment report to employees; criteria for adviser's referral to an independent investigator.

We have these and several other programs described here. 

OUR CODE OF ETHICS