Ethisphere Institute

The Ethisphere Institute is a Scottsdale, Arizona-based organization that defines and measures corporate ethical standards, recognizes companies that excel, and promotes best practices in corporate ethics.

The company publishes Ethisphere Magazine and announces its World's Most Ethical Companies awards once a year. The company also offers verification services for corporate ethics under such names as "Ethics Inside Certification" and "Compliance Leader Verification". It sponsors the Global Ethics Summit every March in New York City and manages a community of compliance, ethics and legal professionals known as BELA, the Business Ethics Leadership Alliance.

The Executive Chairman of Ethisphere, Alex Brigham, created the institute in 2007 as part of Corpedia, a compliance training company. In 2010, Corpedia was sold but Ethisphere's ownership was retained by Brigham. Tim Erblich is Ethisphere's CEO.

A 2010 Slate article raised the issue of the difficult balance between granting ethics awards while operating as a for-profit business.

In 2016, 131 companies were honored including 14 ten-time honorees and 13 first-time honorees.

Ethisphere's framework for measuring standards is known as the Ethics Quotient (EQ). In 2016, the EQ consists of over 160 questions in 5 major categories. Companies are measured not only absolutely but also in relation to others in their industry. The EQ is updated annually and informed by a Methodology Advisory Panel whose members are publicly listed.

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