How can ordinary people convince corporations to change anti-environmental practices?

Through Ecopledge, consumers, investors, and students are harnessing their power to leverage concrete changes in corporate environmental behavior. Join us by signing the Pledge today!

Strategy

Ecopledge campaigns work to influence corporate choices through a unique multiphase approach. Ecopledge advocates research companies and identify one simple action a company can take to protect the environment. We then take the following steps:

1. Contact, discuss, and negotiate our request with company executives.
2. Give time for the company to respond.
3. If possible, schedule a meeting with the company to discuss our requests.

If the company refuses to meet with Ecopledge advocates or to make any change, it is put on notice that it could become the target of a consumer, investor, and/or job boycott. If all attempts to negotiate with the target in a reasonable and open manner fail, Ecopledge will initiate the consumer, investor, or employment boycott.

History

Ecopledge was founded in 1999. We are a project of the non-profit Center for Public Interest Research. We maintain close relationships with Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGS) in over 26 states and with U.S. PIRG in Washington D.C.

At inception, Ecopledge proved to be a leader in the student activist community; we protested objectionable corporate environmental policies by organizing "dirty jobs boycotts" on college campuses across the nation. Ecopledge targeted companies across all major sectors of the economy--including many with a special dependence upon university students, both as prospective employees and consumers.

To complement our early grassroots approach to fostering corporate responsibility, the organization then developed expertise in directly engaging with senior management. In partnership with the environmental investing fim Green Century Capital Management, Ecopledge employed shareholder advocacy and built large investor coalitions to promote accountability on environmental issues.

With rich grassroots experience and proficiency in more formal approaches to influencing management, Ecopledge now unites students, shareholders, and citizens from all walks of life to protect the environment from bad business practices.

Success

Our past efforts have created tangible gains for the environment--in protecting endangered forests, reducing toxic wastes, bettering environmental health, and realizing improvements in many other areas.

Most recently, Ecopledge has catalyzed the following changes:

• On June 3, 2005, Apple Computer announced a program recycling old iPod music players, using a system that we recommended at their 2005 annual general meeting. This policy will diminish the amount of toxic electronic waste, known as "e-waste," in our nation's landfills. Previously, Ecopledge's efforts prompted sweeping changes at Dell--including implementation of a no-export e-waste policy, free-printer and low-cost computer takeback for all individual consumers, and other measures.
• In April 2005, Whole Foods Markets agreed to begin providing information about genetically modified ingredients on their 365-brand food labels. This change both registers and focuses consumer concern on the dangers of genetically-modified foods. It also empowers customers to make informed decisions in the marketplace about what they will eat and serve their children.
• In December 2004, ConocoPhillips announced that they had dropped out of Arctic Power, the industry-funded group lobbying to open the Arctic Refuge to oil drilling.
• Other past victories include the withdrawal of BP from Arctic Power, greatly improved forest products policies at Staples and Office Depot, increased use of recycled material at Coke and Pepsi, and reductions in dangerous soft plastics in child toys manufactured by Disney.