Dear Chief Executive,
Developments in the world of business and politics have led to an alarming trend during recent times. It can be clearly seen that the balance of power has shifted away from locally elected representative bodies towards a more centralised govemment and the less accountable business community.

While movements in the structure of power and influence have continually redefined the world s political agenda the situation has now arisen where more power lies in the hands of large corporations than in those of democratically-elected representatives of the people.

With this power comes responsibility. It is no longer suff~cient for organisations to feel themselves accountable solely to their shareholders and their customers; they must now also become accountable to the general populace as their actions can and do affect us all.

Unfortunately this global accountability is not yet recognised by a surprising number of organisations who continue to ignore the feelings of the people. The increasing corporate influence on all our daily lives means that it has become necessary for ordinary people - not shareholders nor customers nor even the government - to challenge the activities of all organisations and attempt to penetrate the secrecy that hides them.

The Corporate Watch initiative has thus been implemented. Its primary aim is to research and describe the actions of large corporations by as many means as possible disseminating information to large numbers of concemed people and providing an independent view of corporate activity. Organisations should expect to be examined in all areas of their business throughout the world and will be specifically scrutinised in environmental ethical and social mauers. People are increasingly feeling that profit figures are not the most important indicator of performance of the companies that serve them. Corporate Watch welcomes this change of view and will bring companies to account for their results in many more areas.

Corporate Watch will pull no punches. If an organisation is behaving in a way which does not befit the power it wields Corporate Watch will expose this behaviour in no uncertain terms.

It is naturally important for your company to be shown in a favourable light. So-called greenwash will not do however: real achievements and putting policy into practice are the only actions that count. It is therefore in your own best interests to consider the activities of your business and ensure that you are indeed operating within an appropriate moral framework. Think carefully about the consequences of your corporation s actions - they may be more wideranging than you think and you may find yourself attempting to justify a state of affairs which you were previously unable or unwilling to recognise.

Corporate Watch looks forward to investigatingyour organisation in the nearfuture -you may, of course, have been scrutinised already.