ETHICUM was launched in 2002 in the Alpes- Maritimes (France) as a non-profit organisation with the aim of promoting Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) through ethical practices and behaviour of corporations.

ETHICUM provides support to corporations who want to develop ethical principles and behaviour through a number of different programmes which help each corporation identify the values upon which it want to build its CSR strategy and how it will implement this throughout the supply chain.

While ETHICUM was born in Sophia-Antipolis in the Alpes-Maritimes and still has its head office there, ETHICUM has since been expanded within the PACA region. In 2004 ETHICUM was launched in the Alpes de Haute Provence and we hope to be able to do the same in the Bouches du Rhône and the Varby the end of 2006 and the Hautes Alpes and the Vaucluse by the end of 2007.

On a European scale, ETHICUM is currently working on a European based programme with partners in Berlin, Germany and Barcelona, Spain and hope to be expanding this programme in the future to include many more regions within Europe.

One of ETHICUM’s great strengths lies in its cooperation with students. This has been demonstrated through the establishment of ETHICUM Junior in 2004 which is an independent organisation responsible for a number of tasks within the ETHICUM framework.

While ETHICUM supports the principle of CSR, its main focus lies with the economic and social pillars of the concept. And while ETHICUM supports the idea that all stakeholders are involved in the process, its main focus lies with the stakeholders directly linked to the corporation – hence the employees, the clients, the suppliers and the investors.

Where possible ETHICUM tries to promote universal principles such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights http://www.un.org/rights/ and the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work http://www.ilo.org/dyn/declaris/DECLARATIONWEB.INDEXPAGE and where suitable promotes global initiatives in the field of CSR such as the UN Global Compact initiative http://www.unglobalcompact.org/ and the Global Reporting Initiative http://www.globalreporting.org/

For more information about ETHICUM please contact : mail@ethicum.org

"Ethics is the goal, CSR is the way to reach the goal "

Philippe Caner, founder and president of ETHICUM