Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 8, 1991 TAG: 9103080269
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BARRY MEIER THE NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"At that time Skippy was still doing business in South Africa," said Tepper Marlin. "We rated Jif higher, but my daughter won't eat it."
Skippy's corporate parent, CPC International no longer does business in South Africa. Her daughter's peanut butter obsession has waned. But Tepper Marlin remains committed to changing the behavior of companies by using pocketbook politics.
As a result, she has also helped to spawn an era of what might be called socially conscious shopping. The ethos of the book (Ballantine, $5.95), of which Tepper Marlin is an author, is now mirrored in a rash of books. And corporate America has taken notice, wrapping itself in the "green" marketing movement, a development Tepper Marlin views with both excitement and unease.
Tepper Marlin, an animated 46-year-old with a wide, easy smile, said, "We are concerned to the degree that it has remained a public-relations issue, and how little change has taken place in the marketplace."
Not everyone is fond of Tepper Marlin, particularly corporations that have run afoul of her relentess and ever-widening campaigns.
"We really don't have any comment, but thanks for calling," said a spokeswoman for Abbott Laboratories, which Tepper Marlin's book rates as cheap toward charities, insensitive about promoting women and intransigent about South Africa.
Married to an economist with whom she has adopted two Korean children, Tepper Marlin has long tried to intertwine capitalism and social activism. In 1968, while a securities analyst, she was asked by a synagogue to help it invest in companies with no interests in the Vietnam War.
That and other experiences showed her that managers of such alternative funds need a source of reliable corporate data. The result was the Council on Economic Priorities, founded in 1969 by Tepper Marlin.
The center, which is in lower Manhattan, focuses not only on corporate policies but also on feder- We are trying to get people to look at their entire shopping basket. It is not a matter of looking at just one issue or just one company. Alice Tepper Marlin al military spending.
Last year, Tepper Marlin and her husband, Dr. John Tepper Marlin (who took his wife's maiden name as his middle name), traveled to the Soviet Union for a conference on converting U.S. and Soviet military plants to peaceful uses.
But Tepper Marlin's biggest clout has come from "Shopping for a Better World," which in three years has sold more than 800,000 copies.
"The rating of companies is a reality of life and we have no problem with her ratings because they are fair and objective," said Neil Nyberg, a spokesman for Kellogg Co., which received one of the book's highest ratings in the 1991 edition.
The book started as an effort to help interested shoppers buy products from companies that performed best in such as areas as the environment and charitable giving. Recently, it has added other categories like animal testing.
"We are trying to get people to look at their entire shopping basket," Tepper Marlin said. "It is not a matter of looking at just one issue or just one company."
The book seems a bewildering array of symbols, and does not consider the quality of products. But its social messages are clearly reaching some shoppers and businesses.
Just last week, for example, officials of Church & Dwight Co. (very good on animal testing, but weak on promotions for women, according to the book) called Tepper Marlin's group to set up a meeting to discuss ratings for the company, which makes household products like detergents.
by CNB