Consumer protection

You could say that consumer protection is in our blood.

That's because the original co-operative business - the Rochdale Equitable Pioneers Society est. 1844 was created to provide a fair deal for local shoppers.

Now we apply these principles on a global level, using our influence as a shareholder to promote good practice in the area of consumer protection.

Our policy statement on consumer protection

We will promote:

• responsible marketing practices, e.g. with regard to marketing to children, the marketing of tobacco products and of breast-milk substitutes
• the health and safety and labelling of products, e.g. genetically modified foods.

Freedom of Information - TCAM has been in dialogue with Reed Elsevier over its strategy towards the Open Access movement.  Open Access is where the author or funding body behind him / her pays to publish the article and access is free to all. The Open Access movement's ethical argument is that, as most Science Technical & Medical (STM) research is funded by taxpayers and universities and as the information has a high public interest value, it should be free at the point of access, instead of a pay-per-view model which has proved expensive and unpopular with the research community.

Elsevier's Science, Technical and Medical (STM) publishing business is the largest in the world. In our view, the pervasiveness of the Internet in contemporary culture means that many people now expect knowledge to be free at the point of access, and this is bound to impact on the industry's business model. We continue to engage with the company on this issue.

WPP: Appropriate Client Representation & Political Lobbying

In 2008 we held discussions with the public relations company, WPP, over

• How it makes decisions on the suitability of potential clients it represents in advertising
• What policies exist to govern best practice on representation methods
• Proper use of the media and political lobbying.

WPP has since informed us of their intention to implement many of our suggestions. These included ethical training (for the top 50% of workforce), regular ethical risk review meetings and more attention to the ethics of client choice and representation in its policies.