Ethisphere Institute
The Ethisphere Institute defines and measures corporate ethical standards, recognizes companies that excel, and promotes best practices in corporate ethics, to help organizations to improve, to mitigate risk and to improve relationships with employees, business partners, investors, and the broad regulatory community.[1]
The company publishes Ethisphere Magazine and announces its World's Most Ethical Companies® awards once a year. In 2015, 132 companies were honored. Ethisphere also offers verification services for corporate ethics under such names as "Ethics Inside Certification®" and "Compliance Leader Verification®". It sponsors the Global Ethics Summit every March in New York City and manages a community of compliance, ethics and legal professionals known as BELA, the Business Ethics Leadership Alliance.
Ethisphere's framework for measuring standards is known as the Ethics Quotient™ (EQ). In 2016, the EQ consists of over 160 questions in 5 major categories. Companies are measured not only absolutely but also in relation to others in their industry. The EQ is updated annually and informed by a Methodology Advisory Panel whose members are publicly listed. Companies choose to be part of the EQ process, primarily because of the benchmarking that results from the exercise but also because it is an integral part of the selection process for World's Most Ethical Companies.
History
The Executive Chairman of Ethisphere, Alex Brigham, created the institute in 2007 as part of Corpedia, a compliance training company. In 2010, Corpedia was sold but Ethisphere's ownership was retained by Brigham. Tim Erblich is Ethisphere's CEO.