History of the Bench Marks project

At the 1992 Earth Summit, the UN Centre on Transnational Corporations sought to institute an international code of conduct for companies that it had been developing since 1974. This initiative was blocked by influential governments in favour of voluntary measures proposed by a group of multinational companies.

In response, ECCR, the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR, USA) and the Taskforce on the Churches and Corporate Responsibility (TCCR, now part of Kairos, Canada) formed a partnership to produce an analytical framework to examine how multinationals behave across a full range of corporate responsibility expectations.

The first edition of the resulting document, Principles for Global Corporate Responsibility: Bench Marks for Measuring Business Performance (the Bench Marks), was published in 1995.

Over a two-year period, the framework was tested by church groups, private industry, labour organisations, women's groups and NGOs, then revised and republished. In 1998 a second edition was published by the three partners in Canada, the UK and the USA.

The Bench Marks framework formed the agenda for an international conference held at Hengrave Hall, Bury St Edmunds, UK, in April 1999. ECCR, ICCR and TCCR hosted 53 delegates from advocacy organisations in 21 countries in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australasia and Europe. Delegates included representation of indigenous peoples.

Counties represented: Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Canada, Colombia, El Salvador, Germany, China (Hong Kong), India, Kenya, Korea, New Zealand, Nigeria, Peru, South Africa, the Philippines, the UK, the USA, Zimbabwe.

With equal representation between South and North, conference participants shared their experiences in holding companies accountable for social and environmental impacts. The delegates instituted a steering group, drawn from members in six continents, who worked together to produce the third edition of the Bench Marks, which was published in 2003.

The steering group, who met to agree the text of the revised document in Rietvleidam, near Pretoria, South Africa, in October 2002, comprised:

Helga Birgden, Christian Centre for Socially Responsible Investment, Australia
Chan Ka Wai, Hong Kong Christian Industrial Committee, China
Daniel Gennarelli, Kairos: Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives
Rev. David Schilling, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, USA
Rev. Jo Seoka, Anglican Bishop of Pretoria, Bench Marks Foundation of Southern Africa, South Africa
Hildebrando Vélez, Censat Agua Viva / Friends of the Earth Colombia
Rev. Crispin White, ECCR, UK