Corporate Social Responsibilities Policies of BP-Free-Samples

Question: Discuss about the Discuss about the Corporate Social Responsibilities Policies of BP. Answer: BP had established their headquarters in Mexico more than 50 years ago in 1960s. The company in the country is currently operating in the synthetic lubricants market, in natural gases such as liquefied natural gas crude oil and refined products to level including petrochemicals. These activities supplement in meeting the demand of energy and energy security requirements (bp.com, 2017). The essay is focused on the ethical issues of the company regarding the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. It is due to the explosion occurred at occurred at the BPs Deepwater Horizon oil rig. Further research stated that the event could have been avoided if the company, its partners and the government would have dealt with the problem found by the commission appointed by Obama. An analysis and recommendation of the companys business ethics will be discussed in the following essay (wordpress.com, 2017). Business and the society that the business is operating in are interconnected with the business ethics theory. It can be viewed from two points, that are, the goal of the business and the consideration of the business as a part of the society. The dilemmas in the ethical grounds occur if two or more than two social work morals are in conflict. The unsafely performance conditions and environmental pollutions that are found in the Deepwater Horizon oil spills that is Gulf of Mexico put pressure on BP for violating the ethics of the business. Major stakeholders of the company also got affected in the regarded issue. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill that is Gulf of Mexico is considered as the worst oil spill in U.S. history. The explosion took place on 20th April, 2010, that resulted in large oil spill catastrophe, where 11 workers in the rig were killed and the number of injured are 17. Over 150 thousand barrels of crude oil gushed into the sea on every day basis for next five months which covered 68 thousand square miles of the Gulf surface (ocean.si.edu, 2017). BP funded the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative with $500 million to carry out the research on the impact of the spill (ocean.si.edu, 2017). The research teams came up with a report blaming unethical behavior of the company that led to the disaster. They stated that BP used cheaper equipment in installation of a drilling rig which was considered as risky. The utilitarianism theory is used in the description for evaluating the ethics of the company in the matter which states that action of an individual should always be based on the ethics and moral rules (Lata, 2014). It favors the idea of sacrifice of a few for the profit of the larger mass. The benefits of the society were minimized in BPs CSR policy. The oil slip of Gulf of Mexico can be traced back to various missteps that were taken by the companies involved, BP, Transocean, Halliburton and the MMS who acted in an absolutely unethical way and denied their minimal duties. The BPs contribution towards deprived does not compensates for the destruction. The government was equally responsible for the accident for building a flawed relation with the company. The ethical responsibility of the company and the government needs to be reformed in order to avoid such accidents in future (forbes.com, 2017). The lack of professionalism of the CEO, Tony Hayward was observed by all, prejudging the ethical behavior of the companys social responsibility, as he was enjoying a yachting holiday during the crisis. It portrayed a negative image of the company administration (Lamendella et al., 2014). A large number of stakeholders got affected by this accident either directly or indirectly. The major stakeholders are the sea lives. It is due to the pollution that mutated and killed the fishes. The sea lives were devastated by the explosion and the natural lives got changed widely (Paul et al., 2013). Another major party that got affected is the industries of seafood and tourism. The water pollution put the workers at the risk of losing their jobs, increased seafood price in the market which affected the restaurant and supermarkets as well. People refrained from going to the beaches due to the pollution which demolished the tourism sector. On the other hand, the profit figures of the company fell down to 35% which increased the expenditure and obligation for individual compensation and penalties, thus losing revenue (ocean.si.edu, 2017). It impacted in the reputation of the company and damaged the financial backbone of the company as the investors and the stakeholders lost their f aith. The marine life on the other hand was critically harmed due to the explosion. The toxic oil in the water caused mutation in several species and many have been killed due to it (Steele, 2016; Resnik et al., 2015). Moreover, peoples opinion of oil use was questioned because of the disaster in BPs oil station. People were put in the position to consider about shifting to the alternative energy sources as they evidenced the negative impact of oil spill to the environment. On contrary, the attempts that were made by the company to compensate for the damage by taking part in cleaning campaign can also be taken into consideration. People who got affected by the disaster directly or indirectly received benefits out of these actions (practicalethics.ox.ac.uk, 2017). Nevertheless, this cannot undo the accident that took place in the first place. If the BP had taken ethical considerations in constructing standard oil drilling rig, the whole scenario could have been avoided in the first place. It could have saved companys huge amount of money that was spent on cleaning and other fine. They could have invested this money in future projects. It could also contribute in reduction of the oil price by supplying more amount of oil in the U.S. market. This could have benefited the whole economy as many companies have to spend a lot of money in the oil expanses. Hence, if the expenses would have been less, the price of the products or services provided by the companies would have also been considerably decreased (Liu et al., 2016). Kents Deontology theory can be used as the second philosophy in the scenario where it judges the persons action and intentions to fulfill a duty regardless of the consequences that come after (Shafer-Landau, 2014). Though the report shows the usage of poor quality equipment resulted in the explosion, but it was never the intention of BP to create as such. But it is clearly sighted that, the decision taken in immoral as it increased the risk factors and eventually resulted in a catastrophic damage. On contrary, the investment done by the company is containing the damage and in recovery shows good morals and ethical part of the company with good intentions that neutralizes the actions. The companys participation in clean-up mission is considered as ethical and moral according to the Kant theory. BP should invest more time and labor in creating a proper and ethical CSR plan in future which can avoid these unfortunate circumstances. Focus has to be given on the use of standard equipments. This will eventually raise the price of the oil in the market but ensure the safety of the society and the employees of the company. The profit margin of the company will also eventually fall, but it will stop from creating similar situation in near future which will in term save a lot of money. The after steps that were taken by the company were justified as they showed ethical and moral insight of the company. Their decisions in cleaning up the water and help in sustaining the marine life came up profitable for the stakeholders. But this couldnt fully compensate the damage as the unethical decisions taken by the company in prior caused harmful effects to the marine life and altogether to the economic infrastructure of the company. No real benefits were provided from the next ethical decisio ns that were taken aftermath. Conclusion can be drawn from the above discussion that the companys CSR policy clearly needed to be upgraded. The failure of British Petroleums business strategy in Gulf of Mexico has been highlighted in the essay and various ethical issues have been discussed. The ethical dilemmas of the incident can be seen. The use of Kents Deontology theory and utilitarianism theory is also used in the passage for analyzing the situation and the events occurred in following. A brief discussion is also provided of the impact on the major stakeholder in the issue. The final part of the essay comprises of the recommendation that the company should take in order to avoid similar incidents in near future which will affect their image and the products they deal with. References academia.edu. (2017). BP ethical Issue Retrieved 17 August (2017), from https://www.academia.edu/7563817/BP_ethical_issues bp.com. (2017). BP Mexico. Retrieved 17 August 2017, from https://www.bp.com/es_mx/mexico/acerca-de-bp/bp-en-mexico.html forbes.com. (2017). Real Cause of Oil Spill. Retrieved 18 August 2017, from https://www.forbes.com/2010/05/25/oil-spill-engineering-technology-cio-network-bp.html Lata, R. (2014). BUSINESS ETHICS IN FIJI 2.Asia-Pacific Journal of Education, Business and Society,1(1). Lamendella, R., Strutt, S., Borglin, S., Chakraborty, R., Tas, N., Mason, O. U., ... Jansson, J. K. (2014). Assessment of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill impact on Gulf coast microbial communities.Frontiers in microbiology,5. Liu, Z., Liu, J., Gardner, W. S., Shank, G. C., Ostrom, N. E. (2016). The impact of Deepwater Horizon oil spill on petroleum hydrocarbons in surface waters of the northern Gulf of Mexico.Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography,129, 292-300. ocean.si.edu. (2017). Gulf Oil Spill. Retrieved 17 August 2017, from https://ocean.si.edu/gulf-oil-spill practicalethics.ox.ac.uk. (2017). practical ethics Retrieved 17 August 2017, from https://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2010/06/ethical-questions-surrounding-the-bp-oil-spill/ Paul, J.H., Hollander, D., Coble, P., Daly, K.L., Murasko, S., English, D., Basso, J., Delaney, J., McDaniel, L. and Kovach, C.W., (2013). Toxicity and mutagenicity of Gulf of Mexico waters during and after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.Environmental science technology,47(17), pp.9651-9659. Resnik, D.B., Miller, A.K., Kwok, R.K., Engel, L.S. and Sandler, D.P., (2015). Ethical issues in environmental health research related to public health emergencies: reflections on the GuLF STUDY.Environmental health perspectives,123(9), p.A227. Shafer-Landau, R. (2014). The fundamentals of ethics. Steele, G.A., (2016). Environmental Conflict and Media Coverage of an Oil Spill in Trinidad.Negotiation and Conflict Management Research,9(1), pp.60-80. wordpress.com. (2017). Deepwater Horizon. Retrieved 17 August 2017, from https://bizgovsoc4.wordpress.com/2012/11/11/the-deepwater-horizon-spill-an-ethical-nightmare/