The Good
[  ]  one of top 50 best companies for minorities
[  ]  one of top 100 companies for working mothers
[X]  Has a non-discrimination policy that includes sexual orientation

To Be Improved
[X] - sites in non-democratic nations
[  ] - child labor violations in last five years
[  ] - environmental violations in last five years

BCG is very secretive about its clientele, but any consulting firm as large as BCG will have some companies on its client list that have some effect on the environment. However, no evidence can be produced to show that BCG has anything to do with how these companies regard the environment.

BCG offers domestic partner benefits to same-sex couples. The workplace is fairly diverse, and discrimination has not been an issue for the firm.

BCG's recent pro bono projects have included: identifying new retail opportunities in U.S. urban centers, in partnership with the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, founded by Harvard Business School Professor Michael Porter; developing a comprehensive environmental plan for eastern Germany at the request of the German government; designing a private-sector youth-internship program in Canada called "Career Edge" that has helped thousands of inexperienced graduates find their first jobs; helping a leading Mexican university improve its operations and focus its strategy; and devising a five-year strategy for the World Wildlife Fund’s Worldwide Fund for Nature

Personal Experience
I was asked to do research on BCG on behalf of the Stanford Students for Informed Career Decisions in January 2000 as part of Community Service Writing. I knew that BCG, as a consulting group, had no direct impact on the environment, nor did it employ low-skilled workers liable to exploitation. So asking if BCG was "socially responsible" was, in a way, quite strange. However, a consulting firm has a lot of influence over its clients. If it recommends a socially irresponsible act in order for its clients to achieve certain profit goals, the management of a company may very well take that recommendation as a justification for doing it, despite the objections of its employees. So there does exist a certain ethical dimension to what consulting firms do. I put together a list of questions that I thought would help bring out the views of consulting firms on this matter of ethical consulting, as well as on the larger questions normally addressed by SICD. The questions were:

1. Does BCG have a a guideline as to what kind of advice is unethical? For example is advising large numbers of layoffs considered ethical and why?

2. Does BCG have a system for discriminating between prospective clients? How does BCG handle governments or companies with unethical practices or requests?

3. Can BCG staff opt not to work on projects they consider inethical?

4. Does BCG try to advise clients to stop inethical practices? Has it ever pulled out of a contract because of the inethical practices of its client? Or is this itself unprofessional?

5. What is BCG's stand on discrimination in its various forms within the firm itself?

6. How many females/minorities are in senior management at BCG? Are females and minorities renumerated equally with others?

7. Does BCG consider itself a highly ethical company? As opposed to being as ethical as the next company.

8. How would you compare the job satisfaction of BCG employees with those at similar companies? To what would you ascribe the satisfaction of BCG employees?

Alas, I was sadly disappointed. After several emails and phone calls in which I was told that BCG was considering answering my questions, BCG gave a definite refusal to answer the above questions of mine.

From this experience, I can only conclude that my questions involved some rather sensitive issues for BCG which they did not prefer to discuss. Does that mean that BCG does in fact give unethical advice? Not necessarily. There were perhaps many factors at play in their decision to refuse comment. For example, SICD is very new and they may have been unwilling to release information to an unknown group with unknown intentions. They may also be under an obligation not to release information on their relationship with their clients. But their silence is very disappointing. SICD is an objective group that aims to educate students about social responsibility and provide neutral information about companies, and we are just as eager to report high standards of corporate ethics as low ones. In this light, a refusal to make a stand on corporate behavior can be quite significant indeed.

For more information, you can visit their webpage at www.bcg.com.