Ethos’ Experiences: from Brazil to Latin America

Ethos Indicators, Ethos Journalism Award, and the Ethos Journalists Network are some of the Brazilian practices to be replicated by and diffused across other six Latin American countries: Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Paraguay, and Peru. This is the proposal of the CSR Latin American Program, announced during the 2007 Conference plenary session “Business initiatives for the construction of a sustainable and just society”.

These experiences, already consolidated in Brazil, will be now implemented in each of the countries participating in the program on three fronts: Ethos Indicators; CSR in the Media; and CSR and Poverty Eradication Actions. The proposal is to encourage the development of indicators, awards, and Latin American networks of corporate social responsibility. The project will be feasible thanks to a partnership between Instituto Ethos, Fundação Avina, the international cooperation agency ICCO, and the Business Forum.

According to Fundação Avina, this experience brings the opportunity for the entire Latin America to advance as a block of countries, diffusing the practices all over the continent. The Business Forum representative stressed that Instituto Ethos’ methodologies and experiences will enhance the work on social responsibility implementation and poverty eradication already being developed by the group in twenty countries. ICCO, present in seventy countries, is confident and expects concrete results from the partnership.

In the CSR and Poverty Eradication Actions project, the idea is to disseminate Instituto Ethos’ guidance on how companies can integrate poverty eradication into their core business. The initiative aims to encourage each company, in each country to integrate their actions into regional development plans and with other players, such as the public power and NGOs, so that poverty eradication actions can ensure broad community access.