ECCR was formed in 1989 by a group of people active in Industrial Mission after a conference of British industrial chaplains had heard from visiting trade unionists about alleged malpractice of a UK company in the Philippines.

ECCR’s founders were already involved in the work of the Church in economic life and concerned with ethics and practicalities of company behaviour in Britain.

Much of the early work consisted of defining what corporate responsibility means in terms of ethics, human rights, and social and environmental concerns, in the context of a Church with investments in companies and a faith that speaks of justice and care for the marginalised.

It became clear that the Church is sometimes an investor in companies whose policies needed to change. ECCR therefore decided to explore the route of using church share holdings as a basis for dialogue with companies.