The IBE is a hub for discussion and practical advice.
Our status as an educational charity is core to our independent perspective and allows us to work with organisations as a critical friend to promote high standards of business behaviour based on ethical values.
Everything we do is informed and shaped by our engagement with our supporters, insight from our network and our own research into key trends and issues. We listen, distil and raise awareness by sharing the latest good practice through our publications, events, training and tools.
We apply this knowledge to thought leadership, anticipating developments and helping businesses of all sizes meet new challenges.
Support, both financial and intellectual, ensures that we are able to raise awareness of ethical issues and provide practical solutions.
A brief history of IBE
The Institute of Business Ethics was founded in 1986 by business people for business people.
They shared a concern that, following the deregulation of the City of London, ‘one’s word would no longer be one’s bond’. The Big Bang radically changed the way the London Stock Exchange operated, doing away with much of what was seen by critics as ‘the old boys’ network’ and internationalising London’s financial markets.
Originally, the IBE operated as a fund within the Christian Association of Business Executives (CABE), a registered charity established in 1938 to promote the study and application of Christian moral principles in the conduct of business, but in 2000, the Institute obtained separate charitable status "to advance public education in business ethics and related subjects with particular reference to the study and application of ethical standards in the management and conduct of industry and business”.
Since 1986, the IBE has published more than 50 practical publications on applied business ethics topics; conducted surveys on the use of codes of ethics within companies; developed training programmes in business ethics, from induction programmes to the boardroom; worked with academics and business schools to promote the study of business ethics within MBA and business studies courses; and offered advice and support to business ethics practitioners, boards and their companies.
The IBE holds events under the Chatham House Rule so that ethical issues which organisations commonly face may be discussed, and this has helped drive the work programme of the Institute.
