CEP | 1969–Council on Economic Priorities Founded (Updated Apr. 14, 2016)

Alice Tepper Marlin, founder of the
Council on Economic Priorities (CEP).

July 22, 2015–The Council on Economic Priorities (CEP) was founded in 1969 by Alice Tepper. She moved on to found Social Accountability International, where she is now in her last year as CEO.

In 1971 I met her when I was in my second year as a  professor in the economics and finance department at Baruch College (CUNY).

I read about her and was interested in her organization's report on pollution in the paper industry, Paper Profits.

My research assistant, Irwin Zafir, called her for an appointment. I took Alice to lunch. It was March 17. We were engaged in June and married in September. Since then she has gone by Alice Tepper Marlin, and I became John Tepper Marlin.

The paper industry study that interested me was CEP's second comparative study of business social performance and its first environment study.

L to R: Paul Newman, Alice Tepper Marlin, Harry Kahn
(CEP Board member). Photo 1988 by Marilynne Herbert. 

The first one (Efficiency in Death) was on the degree of corporate involvement in the production of anti-personnel weapons. This study had some surprises–for example, that consumer-products manufacturers like Bulova and Whirlpool were involved in making these weapons.

A Fortune article in January 2011 by James Ledbetter, based on his book about the Military-Industrial Complex, summarizes the huge impact of CEP's first study:

[I]t was a CEP book published in the fall of 1970, "Efficiency In Death," that in many ways crystallized thinking about the MIC [Military-Industrial Complex] and gave it a lasting impact. Produced with research from the American Friends Service Committee, "Efficiency In Death" focused exclusively on the manufacture of antipersonnel weapons, primarily cluster bombs, which were designed to kill human beings as opposed to destroying property and military installations.
After some introductory description, the book consists almost entirely of information about the hundred largest private companies involved in the manufacture of these weapons. A few of the larger firms, such as Honeywell (HON, Fortune 500) and Sperry-Rand, were well-known general military contractors--but many were familiar manufacturers of everyday products: among others, the Bulova Watch Company, General Motors (GM), Motorola (MOT, Fortune 500), Rubbermaid, Uniroyal and Whirlpool.
Nearly all the data was presented with the dispassion of a Wall Street analyst's company report, yet the implication was clear: invest in, work for, or patronize these companies, and you are complicit in the horrible, burning death of civilians in Vietnam.
What Tepper and her colleagues were doing with the MIC went much further than the time-honored boycott; they were suggesting that the tools of activism could be melded to the tools of investing to make participation in war unattractive from the point of view of corporate finance. This was the beginning of what would become known as "socially responsible investing."

The study of the paper industry was published the year after the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency. Its first Director (1970-1973) was William D. ("Bill") Ruckelshaus. Prior to his government service, he was vice president for legal and corporate affairs at Weyerhaeuser, which was identified in Paper Profits as one of the companies with the best environmental records, but as owning another company–Potlatch Forests–with one of the worst records. Several people from the Weyerhaeuser family told Alice they were shocked to find that they owned a company with such as poor environmental record. (Ruckelshaus later returned to Weyerhaeuser as senior vice president.)

The Price of Power

The paper industry was one of the five industries identified by McGraw-Hill as having the biggest cleanup jobs to do to meet the standards of the EPA's new regulations. The other four industries were electric utilities, steel, petroleum and chemicals.

CEP's second environmental study was on the electric utilities industry, entitled The Price of Power, co-authored by Charles (whom we all knew as Charlie) Komanoff, Holly Miller and Charles (Sandy) Noyes and published first by CEP in 1972 and then by MIT Press.

The Price of Power, CEP's second environmental study, received the same favorable reviews as the first one on the paper industry. Flora Lewis, syndicated columnist, said in Newsday:

The electric power industry has responded with a wounded roar of rage to a new study by the Council on Economic Priorities showing just what the utilities are doing about pollution.... The invectives are spouting from the utilities almost as thickly as soot.... The companies felt that showing them up was antibusiness, but it isn't. It reflects a faith that American business can act responsibly when the public is looking and, above all, a faith in the American public. That's the sort of spirit, in action, that politicians just talk about.

Time Magazine said:

Electric power plants are a major source of air pollution. Can technology reduce this pollution? Yes, according to a new study of the Manhattan-based Council on Economic Priorities.... The plant-by-plant survey leaves no doubt that there is still much room for improvement—both in present production and in planning for the future.

Four second-hand copies are available on Amazon as I write, at a price of $10.94. They are collectibles and will surely rise in value... If they are not more valuable in ten years, and you buy a copy, I will refund your money. Keep the receipt and get back to me in 2025.

Here is Charlie Komanoff's introduction of his scanning-in of The Price of Power:

Brand-new! (to the Web, that is): a scanned copy of the complete 620-page report, The Price of Power: Electric Utilities and the Environment ... published in 1972 by the Council on Economic Priorities, which conceived and sponsored it.
The report was an early broadside in the "war on coal" and documented the pervasive antipathy toward environmental protection and R&D in the U.S. electric power industry at the height of its political power in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
You may download the entire report via the link directly below. Or, since that file is huge (35MB), you may wish to download it in sections. 

►Complete volume (620 pp, 35 MB).
►Front Covers, Title Page, Contents, Preface, Acknowledgments (10 pp, 0.6 MB).
►Intro, Fossil Fuels, Air Pollution, Nuclear Power (46 pp, 3.2 MB).
►Thermal Pollution, Hydro Power, R&D, Advertising & Growth (59 pp, 4.2 MB).
►Study Scope + Findings, Summary Charts, Notes (42 pp, 3.1 MB).
►Company Profiles: American Electric Power, Baltimore Gas & Electric, Central Maine Power (85 pp, 4.6 MB).
►Company Profiles: Commonwealth Edison, Consolidated Edison, Florida Power & Light (108 pp, 5.8 MB).
►Company Profiles: Houston Lighting & Power, Iowa Power & Light, Northern States Power, Oklahoma Gas & Electric (68 pp, 3.4 MB).
►Company Profiles: Pacific Gas & Electric, Portland General Electric, Southern California Edison, the Four Corners Project (88 pp, 4.4 MB).
►Company Profiles: Southern Company, Virginia Electric Power (75 pp, 3.9 MB).
►Appendices, Bibliography, Errata, Back Covers (38 pp, 2.4 MB).

CEP went on to do environmental reports on the other three most-polluting industries, and did follow-up studies on issues that arose from their research.

CEP ALUMS | Leon Reed, Researcher, 1970s

Leon Reed, Moving to Gettysburg

Leon Reed, former researcher at the Council on Economic Priorities in the 1970s, recently had a birthday and sent an update on his current activities.

For the past ten years has been teaching at Woodbridge Garfield High School outside of Washington, D.C. and on his Facebook page has many tributes from his students, many of whom came from a different culture.

He says he is proudest of the contributions he made to the lives of these students, for whom the challenges have been enormous.

"Full social security age (66) and I retired. Wanted to leave while I still "had it" and while we had the energy to enjoy. 10 years teaching. We sold both cars, sold our townhouse, bought an Outback and moved to Gettysburg. I'll be very busy with my projects (mainly working on a series of history, travel, and family history books), but I'm also spending a lot of time gardening, bike riding, and taking rides in the country. Thank you again for getting me my start on what turned out to be a very satisfying career. It was a long time ago, but I still constantly think about the people I worked with and the things we did at CEP."

Leon sent in a lovely tribute to Alice for her tribute dinner on her retirement from Social Accountability International in 2015.

2014 - Elevate Honors Alice Tepper Marlin at BSR Meeting

L to R: Tom Nelson (VF Corporation), Alice Tepper Marlin, Mark Jones
(Elevate). Photo by JT Marlin.

In November 2014, Business for Social Reponsibility met in New York City.

One evening of their meeting, Elevate took the opportunity to convene a reception in Manhattan to honor Alice Tepper Marlin for her 45 years of work on behalf of better workplace conditions.

The event was appropriately held on West 45th Street, at the Perfect Pint.

Based in Hong Kong, Elevate was formed in 2013 by a merger between Level Works and INFACT.

(I am privately informed that other groups intend to host tributes before the end of 2015, when Alice is set to retire as CEO.)

L to R: Alice Tepper Marlin, Ian Spaulding, Laura Rubbo. Photo by
JT Marlin.

Her work on behalf of better workplaces throughout the world was as founder and head of two different organizations:

CEP, 1969-1996: Alice founded and headed the Council on Economic Priorities (CEP), the first organization to focus on research for social investment funds.

CEP pioneered in policy analysis on energy. It was a training ground for many leaders in the CSR arena.

It is probably most remembered for its best-selling book, Shopping for a Better World (CEP and Ballantine Books), which sold one million copies between 1988 and 1991.

CEP was even-handed, identifying corporations that did more than they were required to do by law, as well as the worst offenders.

"Selfie" of Participants by Ian Spaulding (Elevate), partly visible front left. L to R, first row, Laura Rubbo (the Walt Disney Company) and Alice Tepper Marlin (SAI). Center: Badri Gulur (SAI) and behind him Christian Ewert (BSCI). Behind Rubbo: Mark Jones (Elevate). Others - behind Jones, Alex Katz (SAI). Left second row, Didier Bergeret (GSCP).

As a centrist NGO, CEP dissatisfied some of those on the left who believed that there is no good corporation, and those on the right who believed that there is no bad one (the social responsibility of a corporate executive being, in their view, to make money and stay out of jail).

SAI, 1997-2015: Alice then founded a new organization, Social Accountability International (SAI), to develop auditable standards for a decent workplace.

Built on principles (or "conventions") developed by the  International Labor Organization, SAI created the nine-point SA8000 standard.

SAI in turn created Social Accountability Accreditation Services (SAAS) to ensure that auditors against the SA8000 standard were qualified.

The CEO of Elevate, Ian Spaulding, presented Alice with a huge bouquet of flowers.

L to R: Alice Tepper Marlin, Christian Ewert (FTA), Laura
Rubbo (Walt Disney Company).

He told the group how Alice was one of the first to identify and use the multi-stakeholder model. She managed meetings of leading corporate executives, trade unionists and NGOs to arrive at a consensus on a shared mission for Human Rights at Work, developing the highly respected SA8000 standard. Ian attended the first meeting that established SAI.

Laura Rubbo of the Walt Disney Company described the successful SAI 100-day project, now named TenSquared, and the benefits that her company has enjoyed from being an SAI corporate member.

SAI worked with Disney on designing its licensee program and it delivered the Social Fingerprint screening for companies seeking to qualify as Disney licensees.

Christian Ewert, newly appointed head of the Foreign Trade Association of Europe (FTA), shared his appreciation of the oversight services delivered to FTA's Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI) by SAAS, and of Alice's service on the BSCI Stakeholder Council. He presented Alice with a box of premium Belgian chocolates.