CONTACT: Marjorie Kelly, Business EthicsOffice 612/879-0695Cell phone 612/812-3733[email protected]
FOR RELEASE DECEMBER 12, 2000* BNA, Inc. wards off pressure to sell the firm, thanks to employee ownership.* Iceland in UK moves to all-organic vegetables, and watches sales soar.* Employees at Whole Foods do their own hiring and firing (and know everyone's salaries).
Who Says 'Only the Ruthless Succeed' in Business These Days?
MINNEAPOLIS -- Dec. 12, 2000 -- In an era when even Ben & Jerry's has succumbed to the ruthless pressure to sell to the highest bidder, The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. (BNA) in Washington, D.C., has withstood that pressure. It's secret: employee ownership. Since 1984, employees have voted three times against selling the company, most recently in April. The firm has been 100 percent employee-owned since 1946, and is the only major legal and business publisher to remain independent, despite a wave of mergers and acquisitions in the industry.
That's just one example of the kind of responsible -- and successful -- business practices celebrated by the Annual Business Ethics Awards, announced today by Minneapolis-based Business Ethics, a 14-year-old publication about socially responsible business and investing. BNA, Inc. won an Award for Employee Ownership.
Here's another example of "responsible excellence": the Iceland Foods grocery chain in the UK in June announced a move to all-organic store-brand vegetables -- at normal prices. The firm will still pay organic farmers higher prices -- and thus absorb $13 million in costs. Increased sales should allow that subsidy to be phased out in two years. In a stroke, Iceland has moved organic food from the margin to the mainstream (while it has delivered stockholders a three-year total return of 217 percent). As environmental journalist Carl Frankel said, organic farming "is one of those key issues. Change that, and you start to transform industrial culture." For this precedent- setting move, Iceland won an Award for Environmental Excellence from Business Ethics.
An Award for Corporate Citizenship went to Whole Foods Market, based in Austin, Tex., for its success at serving many stakeholders. Employees, for example, work in self-managing teams with open access to financials -- including a right to know all salaries. Stockholders have seen share price more than double in three years, substantially outperforming the grocery industry as a whole.
The Premier Sponsor of the Business Ethics Awards is Sears. Additional support was provided by Chatsworth Products, DeVry, Equal Exchange, GM, Quaker Oats, and Sonoco. Selection of winners is made by an independent panel of judges. For the full story, see www.business- ethics.com.
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