Corporate Accountability International is a left-wing advocacy organization founded in 1977 to lead a boycott of Nestlé after it ran a marketing campaign for infant formula that contributed to the deaths of children.¹ Its campaign headquarters are in Boston, Massachusetts, and it has offices in Oakland, California; Seattle, Washington; and Bogota, Colombia. Corporate Accountability has opposed the use of zero carbon nuclear energy. ²

After the Nestlé boycott, Corporate Accountability International targeted General Electric for its involvement in producing arms for the U.S. military; McDonald’s; and the tobacco, traditional energy, and bottled water industries. The organization turned its attention to politics in 2016 after Donald Trump won the 2016 Presidential Election.³

In an attempt to organize against the Trump Administration it created its own “Action League,” a recruitment program calling for volunteers to oppose Trump administration policies.⁴

Founding

Corporate Accountability International, formerly known as INFACT, is a 501(c)(3) organization created in 1977 by four political activists: Leah Margulies, Doug Johnson, Mark Ritchie, and Doug Clement.⁵

The four activists used their organization to organize an international boycott of food company Nestlé after its marketing campaign for infant formula allegedly contributed to the deaths of children.⁶

According to Mark Ritchie, who later served as Minnesota Secretary of State as a Democrat, the campaign was created to “link the capitalist system—and the way it organizes our lives—to people’s very personal experiences.”⁷

Overview

The organization organized an international boycott of General Electric, a major defense contractor involved in the American nuclear program, in 1986 despite the tension between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.⁸

Corporate Accountability International began a campaign against bottled water in 2004, when it claimed production of the product by companies including Nestlé and Veolia are “are exploiting and deepening the global water crisis.”⁹

The organization campaigned against PepsiCo’s marketing practices in 2007.¹⁰ The campaign resulted in PepsiCo changing the labels on its Aquafina water bottles to indicate the water comes from a “public water source.”¹¹

Corporate Accountability International has praised local and state government and university policies prohibiting the purchase or sale of bottled water.¹² Corporate Accountability International also campaigns against McDonald’s for the company’s involvement in food production and advocating for the public’s right to consume the foods and beverages of their choice.¹³ CAI also claims the company targets advertising in a hostile manner.¹⁴

Corporate Accountability International is also campaigning against Exxon Mobil and other traditional energy companies.¹⁵ According to the organization, “the twin histories of systemic racism and U.S. imperialism means that Global South countries and communities of color in the U.S. are on the frontlines of climate change,” and those people “have contributed the least to the problem.”¹⁶

Political Activities

After more than three decades of campaigning against various business practices,¹⁷ Corporate Accountability International turned its attention to electoral politics in 2016, claiming “Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president brings into focus just how broken our economic and political systems are.”¹⁸

CAI has petitioned for causes like calling on Congress to block President Trump’s infrastructure plan.¹⁹ The group provides activists opposed to the administration with “toolkits” on its resources page.²⁰

In an attempt to create organized opposition to the Trump Administration, the organization created the Corporate Accountability Action League. To join the “Action League,” users agree to “pledge to resist Trump’s expansion of corporate power at the expense of people and the planet. I will be part of the people-powered movement to challenge the Trump administration’s climate-change-denying, pro-corporate, racist, sexist, and xenophobic agenda.”²¹

In June 2022, the organization called for reparations for members of the African American community by Wells Fargo and claimed the company had engaged in harmful lending and banking practices as well as discrimination against Black and Hispanic communities. ²²

Funding

Corporate Accountability International receives hundreds of thousands of dollars in support annually from the Deborah Rose Foundation. Additionally, the group has received substantial funding from the Patriot Foundation, the Colombe Foundation, the Park Foundation, and the Educational Foundation of America.²³

Corporate Accountability International has received multiple grants from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. In 2006 it received $50,000 from Rockefeller Brothers Fund for one year. According to the Rockefeller Brothers Fund website, Corporate Accountability International received this money “For its project, C-Change: Regaining People’s Power Over Corporations,” which coincided with the fund’s mission to “Strengthen the Vitality of Democracy in Global Governance: Access and Participation.”²⁴

It also received $75,000 for one year in 2009 as part of the same program goal, but this time “For its work building civil society capacity to use global governance tools to improve corporate practices.”²⁵

Controversies

In 2020, Christy Sampson-Kelly, director of Travis Hill School, was accused of making sexually explicit phone calls to an 18-year-old inmate of the New Orleans Juvenile Detention Center. Sampson-Kelly, who was 51 at the time, was accused of exchanging over 750 phone calls with the inmate. Following these allegations, Sampson-Kelly was removed as director and later plead guilty to misdemeanor charges in 2022. ²⁶

Opposition to Nuclear Energy

Corporate Accountability was one of more than 600 co-signing organizations on a January 2019 open letter to Congress titled “Legislation to Address the Urgent Threat of Climate Change.” The signatories declared their support for new laws to bring about “100 percent decarbonization” of the transportation sector but denounced nuclear power as an example of “dirty energy” that should not be included in any legislation promoting the use of so-called “renewable energy.” ²⁷

Nuclear power plants produce no carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas emissions, and as of 2021 accounted for 19 percent of American electricity production—the largest source of zero carbon electricity in the United States. ²⁸ An October 2018 proposal from The Nature Conservancy noted that zero-carbon nuclear plants produced 7.8 percent of total world energy output and recommended reducing carbon emissions by increasing nuclear capacity to 33 percent of total world energy output. ²⁹

People

Kelle Louaillier took the role of president of Corporate Accountability International in 2015. Prior to leading the organization, Louaillier served in many high profile roles within the organization.³⁰

One of the four founders of the organization is former Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie (D). Ritchie attributed his victory to the Secretary of State Project, a targeted political operation funded in part by liberal mega-donor George Soros, which sought to elect Democrats to state-level election administration posts.³¹

Sarah Hodgdon, one of the members of Corporate Accountability International’s board of directors, is the national program director of the Sierra Club, one of the nation’s oldest and largest environmentalist organizations that has recently become a political force. ³²

Partner Organizations

Daily Kos, Amazon Watch, Roots Action, Toxics Action Center, Climate Action Network, Greenpeace, and Progressive Democrats of America are partners with “Kick Big Polluters Out of Climate Policy,” an initiative led by Corporate Accountability International.³³

1. Solomon, Stephen. “THE CONTROVERSY OVER INFANT FORMULA.” The New York Times. December 06, 1981. Accessed April 09, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/1981/12/06/magazine/the-controversy-over-infant-formula.html.
2. “Group letter to Congress urging Green New Deal passage.” Earthworks. January 10, 2019. Accessed July 27, 2023. https://www.earthworks.org/publications/group-letter-to-congress-urging-green-new-deal-passage/
3. Louaillier, Kelle. “We Are Building Anew. We Must.” Corporate Accountability. November 09, 2016. Accessed April 09, 2018. https://www.corporateaccountability.org/blog/building-anew-must/.
4. “Be the Turning Point: Join the Corporate Accountability Action League.” Corporate Accountability. Accessed April 09, 2018. http://act.corporateaccountability.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=20727.
5. “History.” Corporate Accountability. Accessed April 09, 2018. https://www.corporateaccountability.org/who-we-are/history/.
6. Solomon, Stephen. “THE CONTROVERSY OVER INFANT FORMULA.” The New York Times. December 06, 1981. Accessed April 09, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/1981/12/06/magazine/the-controversy-over-infant-formula.html.
7. Bennett, James T., and Thomas J. DiLorenzo. “From Pathology to Politics.” Google Books. Accessed April 09, 2018. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=UYfWXGEdDtUC&printsec=frontcover&redir_esc=y&hl=en#v=onepage&q=ritchie&f=false.
8. “GE Can Be Beat.” The Multinational Monitor. July/August 2001. Accessed April 14, 2018. http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/mm2001/01july-august/julyaug01interviewmulvey.html.
9. “Water Campaign.” Corporate Accountability. Accessed April 25, 2018. https://www.corporateaccountability.org/water/about-water-campaign/.
10. “Water Campaign.” Corporate Accountability. Accessed April 25, 2018. https://www.corporateaccountability.org/water/about-water-campaign/.
11. Today, Usa. “Aquafina to Say It Comes from Same Source as Tap Water.” ABC News. 2007. Accessed April 25, 2018. http://abcnews.go.com/Business/aquafina-source-tap-water/story?id=3428260.
12. “Communities Go Bottled Water Free.” Corporate Accountability. Accessed April 25, 2018. https://www.corporateaccountability.org/blog/communities-go-bottled-water-free/.
13. “Corporate Accountability Food Campaign.” Corporate Accountability. Accessed April 25, 2018. https://www.corporateaccountability.org/food/about-our-food-campaign/#policy-manipulation.
14. “Corporate Accountability Food Campaign.” Corporate Accountability. Accessed April 25, 2018. https://www.corporateaccountability.org/food/about-our-food-campaign/#policy-manipulation.
15. “Corporate Accountability Climate Campaign.” Corporate Accountability. Accessed April 25, 2018. https://www.corporateaccountability.org/climate/about-our-climate-campaign/.
16. “Corporate Accountability Climate Campaign.” Corporate Accountability. Accessed April 25, 2018. https://www.corporateaccountability.org/climate/about-our-climate-campaign/.
17. “History.” Corporate Accountability. Accessed April 09, 2018. https://www.corporateaccountability.org/who-we-are/history/.

18. “Be the Turning Point: Join the Corporate Accountability Action League.” Corporate Accountability. Accessed April 09, 2018. http://act.corporateaccountability.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=20727.
19. “Tell Your Member of Congress That Trump’s Plan Is Absolutely Unacceptable.” Corporate Accountability. Accessed April 09, 2018. http://act.corporateaccountability.org/p/dia/action4/common/public/?action_KEY=22740.

20. “Resources.” Corporate Accountability. Accessed April 09, 2018. https://www.corporateaccountability.org/resources/.
21. “Be the Turning Point: Join the Corporate Accountability Action League.” Corporate Accountability. Accessed April 09, 2018. http://act.corporateaccountability.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=20727.
22. “Wells Fargo’s Racist History and the Call for Reparations.” Corporate Accountability, June 17, 2022. https://www.corporateaccountability.org/blog/wells-fargo-call-for-reparations/.
23. Data compiled by FoundationSearch.com subscription service, a project of Metasoft Systems, Inc. from forms filed with the Internal Revenue Service. Queries conducted April 11, 2018.
24. “Infact Dba Corporate Accountability International.” Rockefeller Brothers Fund. September 01, 2015. Accessed April 09, 2018. https://www.rbf.org/grantees/infact-dba-corporate-accountability-international.
25. “Infact Dba Corporate Accountability International.” Rockefeller Brothers Fund. September 01, 2015. Accessed April 09, 2018. https://www.rbf.org/grantees/infact-dba-corporate-accountability-international.
26. JILLIAN KRAMER and MARIE FAZIO | Staff writers. “Former Director of School in New Orleans Jail Accused of Misconduct Pleads Guilty to Misdemeanor.” NOLA.com, October 15, 2022. https://www.nola.com/news/courts/article_2f0e0510-4be1-11ed-8e81-87e756927b64.html.
27. “Group letter to Congress urging Green New Deal passage.” Earthworks. January 10, 2019. Accessed July 27, 2023. https://www.earthworks.org/publications/group-letter-to-congress-urging-green-new-deal-passage/
28. “Nuclear explained.” U.S. Energy Information Administration. Accessed July 25, 2023. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/us-nuclear-industry.php
29. “The Science of Sustainability.” The Nature Conservancy. October 13, 2018. Accessed July 25, 2023. https://www.nature.org/en-us/what-we-do/our-insights/perspectives/the-science-of-sustainability/
30. “Kelle Louaillier.” Corporate Accountability. Accessed April 09, 2018. https://www.corporateaccountability.org/staff/kelle-louaillier-2/.
31. Barnes, Ed. “States’ Secretaries of State Are Tipping Balance of Power.” Fox News. February 01, 2010. Accessed April 09, 2018. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/01/29/states-secretaries-state-tipping-balance-power.html.
32. “Sarah Hodgdon.” Corporate Accountability. Accessed April 09, 2018. https://www.corporateaccountability.org/staff/sarah-hodgdon/.
33. “Partners.” Kick Big Polluters Out. Accessed April 09, 2018. http://kickbigpollutersout.org/partners/.