Corporations need to change to win. They need to adopt strategies and tactics that are similar to NGOs. They need to have a frank and open dialogue with NGOs and consumers. They play offense all the time. If they're talking about transparency and open debate, they should be doing that.
Transparency is one of the most powerful consumer tools.
A senior associate at the Carneige Endowment, Ann Florini has observed NGOs for several years. I think there is a strong feeling in the NGO community as a whole that government regulations, both national and international, don't go nearly far enough in pressing corporations to meet the standards that they ought to be meeting. Florini cited McDonald's, the ubiquitous fast food behemoth, as a corporation that has worked closely with an NGO, the Environmental Defense Fund. EDF persuaded McDonald's to switch to less environmentally-unfriendly packaging, she said, and EDF has gone out of its way to find corporations to work with. Echoing a theme of the Edelman meeting, Florini said NGOs's sole source of power is the credibility of their information.