What we do
Corporate Accountability wages strategic campaigns that compel transnational corporations and the governments that do their bidding to stop destroying our health, human rights, democracy, and planet.
Corporate Accountability activates people power to challenge and change destructive corporations at every level — from communities to international democratic institutions.
The success of our campaigns is rooted in strategies that produce lasting change. And we don’t stop until we achieve that change. While responding quickly to unexpected opportunities and obstacles, we stay focused on the big picture to achieve our most ambitious goals.
There’s a fundamental imbalance of power in our world today. Transnational corporations and the wealthy few who own and control them have too much power. These corporations feed and exacerbate some of the deepest injustices in our society — from economic inequality to systemic racism.
With every action Corporate Accountability and our partners take, we are actively transforming this unjust system and correcting that fundamental power imbalance.
We employ a range of tactics that shift the cost-benefit ratio for transnational corporations — compelling major changes to industry leaders and across whole industries. And our long-term strategies shift the balance of power away from transnational corporations and back to people.
Read our manifestoOur campaigns are dynamic. As conditions change, so does our organizing. That’s why we have an extended toolbox of tactics we can call upon as needed.
Here are a few of our tactics:
Organize large numbers of people to pressure corporations to make changes. We unite people and mobilize their collective strength to take on even the most powerful transnational corporations, employing tactics ranging from high-visibility actions to social media pressure to petition drives.
Generate media visibility to expose the reality behind corporate spin and shift the public conversation.
Mobilize shareholder activism to create changes in corporate practices.
Build enduring partnerships with allied organizations in the U.S. and around the world. We work with a broad range of people demanding change — community organizers, public officials, national nonprofits, international NGOs, and more — to present a united front powerful enough to take on the most dangerous transnational corporations.
Expose and challenge corporate influence over public policy. Never afraid to name names, we zero in on industry leaders from Nestlé to Exxon Mobil to transform the world’s largest industries.
Hold public officials accountable and advance democracy. We make sure public officials who are in the pockets of corporations feel the full weight of public outrage. We support those who act in the people’s interest and hold global corporations accountable.
Participate in negotiations with international governing bodies. We not only stop individual instances of corporate abuse, we secure international protections that hold abusive industries accountable around the globe. To that end, we maintain official status with:
Over forty years, we have achieved victories that have contributed to millions of people having longer, healthier, and safer lives.
The precise impact — in terms of numbers of lives saved — of a victory like getting GE out of nuclear weapons, or securing a strong global tobacco treaty, is impossible to calculate. What we know for sure is that these victories have shifted power from corporations back to people and made a more just world possible.
Won in partnership with people like you all over the world, these victories add up to deep, transformative change.
Long-term campaigning to challenge corporations works! We’re celebrating a string of victories challenging the bottled water industry’s abuses. This is what it looks like to build a movement to protect life-giving water from corporate greed.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant. The Corporate Hall of Shame shines a spotlight on transnational corporations that trample on our democracy, threaten the well-being of our communities, pollute the environment, and subject people to life-threatening dangers.
Each year, we ask you to cast your vote for the corporation doing the most harm in the world. The corporation with the most votes is inducted into the Corporate Hall of Shame. Then, we partner with allies to mobilize grassroots pressure to compel the corporation to change.
So cast your vote today. Which corporation most needs to change? Which one will we hold accountable, together?
Koch Industries: For lavishing tens of millions of dollars on federal campaigns, lobbying, and front groups to bust unions, deny climate change, and block campaign finance reform.
Bayer: For manufacturing and profiting richly from pesticides linked to the alarming die-offs of bees, while funding junk science and public relations to deny culpability.
Monsanto: For mass producing toxic chemicals, aggressively running small farms out of business, and recklessly promoting genetically engineered seeds that exacerbate food scarcity globally. Monsanto has pushed legislation to prevent its GMO products from being regulated.
