Our Sectors

Defence

GoodCorporation has undertaken work both in the defence sector and for companies supplying into the defence sector. The pressures on these companies are very precise and GoodCorporation has developed a number of industry-specific assessments tailored to the needs of its defence sector clients.

This work includes bespoke assessments and bribery and corruption prevention. Many of the pressures in the defence sector are making it essential for firms to undertake careful due diligence of agents and intermediaries as well as ethics training.

GoodCorporation worked with BAE to develop a methodology for internal audits which incorporates a review of ethical business conduct by taking additional account of behavioural and cultural issues and integrating them into the group’s internal audit programme. GoodCorporation worked alongside BAE’s Internal Audit team to enlarge the scope of the audits to identify relevant stakeholders, ethical business conduct issues and to include stakeholder interviewing and feedback.

Once the audit methodology had been developed and agreed, we worked together with BAE’s internal audit department to embed the new methodology in a range of different group audits.

Our clients in this sector have included: BAE Systems, Airbus, QinetiQ

Extractives

Many extractives projects involve the establishment of highly complex exploration sites involving multiple third parties as well as contractors and subcontractors. To ensure that robust standards of ethical conduct are firmly in place, we also work alongside our clients to help them manage operations using a bespoke project assessment framework.

Managing the conduct of intermediaries can be both a logistical and ethical challenge in this sector. We support our clients in their ethical due diligence of intermediaries and in strengthening their ethics training programmes to help them manage the highly complex supply chains for which they are responsible.

For others, we review operations on a country-by-country basis, preparing annual management reports on the effectiveness of code of conduct implementation.

Much of our work in this sector has been undertaken internationally and includes assessing operations in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Far East and Australasia.

Our clients in this sector have included: Total, BP, Tullow Oil, BG Group, Xstrata, Cairn Energy, Kaz Minerals, Fresnillo, ENRC, Subsea 7.

Financial services

Following the global banking crisis, financial institutions remain under the spotlight in terms of behaviour. Scandals such as mis-selling and Libor have done little to restore the sector’s reputation. While issues such as remuneration, product pricing and willingness to lend remain under scrutiny.

The current economic environment remains challenging for financial services nonetheless, the Financial Conduct Authority remains committed to protecting the interests of consumers.

GoodCorporation has worked with financial institutions to measure how well current practices work, to benchmark them against other organisations and to put in place corrective actions where needed. We developed the auditing framework for the Banknote Ethics Initiative (BnEI), launched in 2013 to promote ethical business practices within the banknote sector and endorsed by over 30 banking institutions including the Bank of England, the European Central Bank and the Deutsche Bundesbank.

In addition to our work on the BnEI scheme, we have also worked with financial institutions to assess their integrity compliance and anti-corruption programmes. We also support our financial services clients with ethics training, ethical conduct risk assessments and their emerging ESG needs.

Our clients in this sector have included: ECB, WBG, CDC, EBRD, FTSE4Good, Axa, DeLaRue, BnEI, Euromoney and other major European financial institutions.

Food & drink

The food and drink sector has faced a number of high profile ethical scandals in the recent past, from revelations of slavery in the supply chain to the horsemeat contamination scandal.

GoodCorporation has worked for several leading food and drink organisations to help them assess their ethics and compliance risks. Our projects in this sector have focused on a variety of issues from anti-bribery programmes to data protection (GDPR compliance) and code of conduct effectiveness reviews. We have also helped companies with policy development, food labelling issues, responsible marketing, competition issues, transparency of pricing and clarity of in-store promotions. Advice on supplier relationships, discounting and promotions has also been provided.

In addition to audit and assessment work, we have also conducted and developed face-to-face and on-line ethics training as well as built whole compliance programmes.

Our work at Adnams, showed how a recognised leader in corporate responsibility used our assessment and certification to help promote its ethical credentials and improve its sustainability performance.

Our clients in this sector have included: Adnams, Diageo, Nestlé, Hard Rock Café, Sainsbury’s and Danone.

Gambling

GoodCorporation has worked for four of the leading gambling organisations in Europe, helping them to assess their worldwide operations. Our work has focussed on evaluating the effectiveness of responsible gambling controls and has involved mystery customer exercises, corporate responsibility reviews and code of conduct audits.

Gambling organisations are under considerable pressure to demonstrate that their controls are working to prevent people from becoming addicted or spending more than they can afford. These controls typically allow players to set limits to how much they spend and ensure that under-18s are effectively excluded. Our experience and knowledge of the sector and the challenges that these companies face to operate responsibly enable us to help our clients put systems and processes in place to deliver best practice. Our evaluation work also enables us to put controls to the test to ensure they work in practice. While mystery customer exercises help our clients to evaluate how well their customer sign-up and management processes work, as well as ensuring that games are fair and working as they should.

“The GoodCorporation assessment is an excellent way for us to measure how we are doing and for the board to ensure that it is discharging its duties in terms of the operating and financial review in our Annual Report.” Peter Reynolds, Head of Investor Relations, PartyGaming.

Our clients in this sector have included: bwin.party (PartyGaming), Ladbrokes, Sportingbet, Rank.

Logistics

The logistics sector is fraught with ethics and compliance risks, in particular bribery and fraud; from low-level demands for facilitation payments to complex bribery schemes, smuggling and theft.

In many parts of the developing world, corruption is endemic, with government employees such as customs officials routinely demanding facilitation payments to compensate for low wages. Developing and implementing best practice to deal with these challenges and comply with increasingly robust international anti-bribery legislation requires sector knowledge and expertise.

Since our foundation in 2000, GoodCorporation has worked with international organisations who operate in this sector or use logistics companies as third parties. Our work has involved high-level and site-level reviews of anti-bribery systems and processes, with recommended activities to mitigate risk. We have also developed anti-bribery training programmes delivering practical solutions for those in the field facing demands for payments.

Our clients in this sector have included: DHL, Bertling, La Poste.

Media & Publishing

GoodCorporation has worked for a number of organisations in the media and publishing sector, including the BBC.

Our work in this sector has covered a range of ethics and compliance issues including high-level reviews of anti-bribery and corruption policies and procedures, development of anti-bribery compliance programmes, as well as reviews and benchmarking of corporate responsibility reports.

Our most high-profile work in this sector however, is the review of the BBC’s child protection and whistleblowing procedures that formed part of the Dame Janet Smith Review. Our findings were published as part of the review and a subsequent review conducted to examine the corporation’s procedures for managing safeguarding, bullying and harassment, speaking up and raising concerns.

GoodCorporation has also worked for BBC Worldwide to assess the adequacy of its anti-corruption programme and the effectiveness of its Modern Slavery Statement.

Speaking at the press conference to publish the Dame Janet Smith Review into Jimmy Savile enquiry, Lord Tony hall, director general of the BBC said; “GoodCorporation are impressive people, they made 53 recommendations, 51 have been accepted, one we are still working on and one we have found a better way of doing. These people are experts; these are not people who will not speak the truth … because they have done.”

Our clients in this sector have included: BBC, DMGT, Reuters, Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, GCap Media.

Pharmaceuticals

GoodCorporation has worked for leading pharmaceutical firms in the UK with significant operations in the US and Western Europe. We have conducted assessments against the GoodCorporation Standard as well as anti-bribery and corruption assessments.

To provide a global perspective on the effectiveness of anti-bribery and ethics programmes we have conducted a number of assessments in overseas subsidiaries, so have an in-depth understanding of the ethics and compliance risks of operating in some of the world’s more challenging markets.

Transparency in the relationship between healthcare professionals and pharmaceutical companies has dominated this sector for some time. We have been working with our clients to help them formulate best practice in responding to the current disclosure requirements.

Our ethics and compliance work has also involved the development of training programmes tailored to the needs of this sector.

“In 2006 Shire, seeking to raise its performance to the next level, hired GoodCorporation to e-survey selected stakeholder groups, both within and outside of Shire. The goal…is to qualify as a GoodCorporation which reflects not just good corporate responsibility policies are in place, but that stakeholders perceive those policies to be consistently enacted.” Shire Dynamics.

Our clients in this sector have included: Hikma, Shire, Acambis and the pharmaceuticals division of a worldwide food manufacturer.

Sport

Sports governing bodies have faced multiple ethical challenges in recent years that call into question the integrity of sport itself. Allegations of bribes, match fixing, doping, bullying and harassment have put many of our best loved sports on the front pages for all the wrong reasons.

GoodCorporation has worked with one of the UK’s leading sports organisations to review its child protection and safeguarding policies and practice. Our work involved an in-depth evaluation, through face-to-face interviews as well as document reviews, of the systems currently in place. A detailed management report was produced putting recommendations forward to strengthen procedures, ensuring that the organisation and, most importantly, the children and young people it works with, are properly protected.

When reviewing an organisation’s child protection and safeguarding procedures, GoodCorporation works alongside child protection expert Moira Murray. Moira has over 30 years experience in safeguarding and child protection. She was Head of Safeguarding at the Children’s Society from 2005-2009, was Secretary of State to the Board of the Independent Safeguarding Authority and was Safeguarding Manager for the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012.

Our clients in this field include the Premier League and the Professional Cricketers’ Association.

Telecoms

The telecoms sector continues to be a critical force for growth and innovation. However, the sector’s infrastructure means that in many areas competition is limited and there is an important regulatory role to ensure that behaviour by firms in terms of prices, services and products meets society’s expectations.

GoodCorporation’s work in this sector helps our clients to measure responsible business behaviour and to put in place commercially sensible policies and practices that meet the regulator’s demands and the expectations of customers, most recently in the area of data protection assessing the adequacy of procedures to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

In telecoms, the pricing challenges are significant. Our assessments have found real challenges in developing pricing policies and systems that deliver clarity and fairness for the customer. Where tariffs are not clear or not understood, reputation can be damaged. Our assessments typically include a mystery customer exercise so that we can properly understand the customer purchasing and interaction experiences.

Much of the growth and opportunity for telecoms companies exists in emerging markets. In some of these markets there are significant challenges of interfacing with governments in a fair and responsible way. In these markets there are also challenges in terms of employee practices, quality and reliability of suppliers and partners, as well as challenges in terms of CSR and community relations. Our assessments have helped our clients operating in these environments to carefully measure and assess how well business practices work and help our clients put in place corrective actions where they are needed.

Our clients in this sector have included: BT, Vodafone, Orange (France Telecom), Computacenter, Logicalis, Telefónica O2.

Utilities

GoodCorporation has undertaken a range of assessments of utilities businesses in the gas and water sectors in Germany, France and the UK.

The challenges for regulated utilities are very specific with the need to demonstrate to the regulator that good practice is in place. In these sectors we have done bribery and corruption assessments, bespoke Code of Conduct assessments and assessments against the GoodCorporation Standard.

In this sector our work has included assessments for two of France’s largest companies Total SA and GDF SUEZ as well as Pennon and Centrica.