SiliconBeat brought to my attention some very welcome news this afternoon: Solar Revolution Continues in California, China.
The China article linked in the body of SiliconBeat’s post shows the power of the Chinese government to throw a massive amount of capital to fulfill a specific agenda. It also presents a nice overview of China’s energy market, and the potential ups and downs for companies in that sector.
A bit of a brief post for the afternoon–here are a few articles/posts that I thought I should pass along:
Jack Yan posted about backlash against Coca-Cola and other soda companies today, and raised some interesting points about brand strength. Tied into this story are some very interesting ethical issues that are worth exploring.
As Jack notes and cites in his post, several bans against cola products and production have surfaced as a result of pesticide level findings. Of note, in several areas of India, the drinks are banned in educational institutions government hospitals.
The obvious ethical question is whether or not it is appropriate for the cola companies to produce beverages with such high levels of pesticides. Theoretically, it is possible (and prior to the backlash and bans, probable) that the local governments did not prohibit such high levels of pesticides in the drinks, and the cola companies, accordingly, produced beverages in line with local regulations. More pesticides probably coincided with greater profits…just a guess.
But is it ethical to cut corners in such a manner, even in the absence of a regulation or law that eliminates the question of legality? Unfortunately, the frustrating answer is that it isn’t certain. For a decision or action to be deemed ethical or not, many criteria have to be evaluated. Moreover, the ethical framework you choose could vastly alter your conclusions. So, what do you do?
If you intend to make a serious effort to incorporate strong ethics and moral theory into the structure of your business, I would start by forming a solid understanding of the many intricacies of business ethics and moral theory. A great place to start is Ethics Updates, though a trip to your local library should also produce a nice stack of weekend reading.
Absent of a more academic and rigorous approach, I would like to believe that we are all capable of making sound ethical decisions by asking ourselves a few simple questions (…optimistic, but quite naive). The caveat, of course, is that you need to have a strong moral basis to begin with, to measure your situation against. Regardless, the following questions should give you a place to start when analyzing the ethics of a challenging situation:
The above list is very, very thin, and only intended to give you a simple starting point. As mentioned, ethical dilemmas can be complex and may involve a large number of criteria and viewpoints.Since much of this sounds so simplistic (what’s so incredible about asking a few common-sense questions) why do these kind of things end up as news stories? Why do we hear about sweat shops, toxic waste being dumped into rivers, stock option scandals, etc.? Are people not asking themselves these very simple questions? Are they ignoring the conclusions they come to? Are they forming the wrong conclusions? Is the ethical framework they are using completely out of date and irrational? Are they so motivated by money that they come to the right conclusions but delude themselves into thinking that their actions are okay regardless? What gives?
[Update, 8/12/06]: Wow. Be sure to read this update regarding Coca-Cola, pesticides, and India from Jack Yan. I find the political twist very interesting though the lack of action and transparency by Coca-Cola and Pepsi definitely take the cake.
Jeffrey Hollender blogs about his decision to not sell Seventh Generation products through Wal-Mart:
First, I applaud Jeffrey for holding his ground and making a very tough choice. Second, this issue is huge and is fodder for a fantastic discussion on so many ethics and governance-related issues.
Seventh Generation is a private company that was once public. Accordingly, Jeffrey has far more latitude following his personal ethics when making business decisions than he did when the company was public. In fact, turning down Wal-Mart as a customer, as much as it pains me to say so, would have been very poor form for a public company, on a strict corporate governance basis. In order to do so ethically, and according to his fiduciary duty to the company and its shareholders, Hollender would have needed to vet the idea to shareholders, achieve majority buy-in, and financially justify the rejection. It may not have been so difficult, especially given that Seventh Generation shareholders are theoretically more likely to warm to such action than might shareholders of Altria (…for instance), and it is equally plausible to justify an increase in sales due to the controversy and positive PR that might be garnered from the rejection. Even so, it is very interesting to look at this issue in relation to Seventh Generation’s current governance situation vs. its former governance situation.
I encourage you to read both of Hollender’s posts and see how his mix of ethical principles jive with business motives. They sit fantastically well with me, but could just as easily seem inane to someone as equally passionate about CSR and business ethics.
I came across an interesting article this afternoon that I thought I should pass on. The article, Corporate Giants Face Social Responsibility Abroad, is from the English edition of a South Korean news site and covers the issue of CSR abroad for large South Korea-based corporations.
While the content of the article wasn’t remarkably surprising, I think it is quite interesting to read about CSR from such a viewpoint. For instance, note the focus on ISO 26000 and the related recommendation:
“Experts recommend basic welfare activities such as free medical treatment in developing nations, building schools and scholarships, and volunteer work and support for cultural activities in advanced nations. They say corporations need to start doing this in a systematic way from the moment they set up operations there.”
I am equally as curious about the state of CSR expectations domestically for South Korean companies. I’ll see if I can dig up any relevant information…
Hop over to the Macon Telegraph (Macon, GA) to check out an interesting CSR-related article from Wednesday’s issue: Weighing the Virtues of Corporate Social Responsibility. The author takes the time to cite a few criteria that define “the social responsibility of a business or corporation” though I think the list could have been a bit more detailed.
Anyone interested in shareholder activism or corporate governance should check out A Proxy Battle: Shareholders vs. CEOs. It’s a great read and covers recent shareholder activism efforts quite well.
In a bit of a personal circular journey (I’ll explain in a minute) the Inspired Protagonist reports on Cargill and other soy purchasers agreeing to a 2-year halt to purchases from growers occupying newly deforested land.
I mentioned the personal part of the story as I had a recent experience regarding Cargill that struck me as rather odd (and never made it into a blog post). As noted earlier, I had the pleasure of listening to a presentation by a representative of NatureWorks (a Cargill subsidiary) while in China during June of this year. The presentation was fantastic and the potential of the technology is inspiring.
Upon my return to the US, however, I did some more research about Cargill and learned of the company’s role (the preceding link is one of the several sources I came across) in the deforestation of the Amazon. At the time, I was a bit disturbed by the contradiction (the NatureWorks presentation touted the low environmental impact of the process, from creation to decomposition, yet its parent company doesn’t seem to exercise the same concern when trading soy beans) and had trouble working through my feelings about both Cargill and NatureWorks.
My personal questions aside, I think it is great that activism made a difference and that Cargill and the other soy traders are making an effort to improve.
Another plug for CSRwire.com — check out a recent press release for Care2′s launch of the “world’s largest listing of jobs at socially responsible companies.” The release, Socially Responsible Companies Rank High With Job Seekers, covers the topic of potential employees’ willingness to take pay cuts to work for non-profits or socially responsible companies but also mentions the launch of the job search site.
Curious about what Care2′s screening criteria are and what definition of socially responsible they use, I took a gander at the site’s “Learn More” page (actually a F.A.Q. page). The information was interesting and left quite a bit of room for huge variations in social responsibility.
From the answer to “What’s ‘Socially Responsible’?”:
“Perhaps one of the most important attributes of a Socially Responsible Business (SRB) is that they demonstrate a commitment toward continuous improvement. Social values change, new challenges emerge, and companies face challenges balancing their values and the bottom line.”
Interesting. There is more text there (I encourage you to read the whole page) but I thought that sentence was particularly interesting.
…And about their screening methodology:
“We worked with social responsibility screening experts, KLD Analytics, to help us identify the best public companies in the U.S. KLD reviews numerous sources to analyze positive and negative attributes including community impact, corporate governance, diversity, employee relations, environment, human rights, and the product itself.
“We started with this list, then kicked out a number of companies we felt just weren’t making the grade, then added a number of private companies we respect most. We also got lots of feedback from our members to further refine our list.”
Again, curiously vague. How many companies were kicked out? For what reasons? What were the private companies that were added? How many of those are there? Do they fit the grade, or are they simply companies worthy of the site creators’ “respect”?
…And, of course, the disclaimer (the response to the question, “How can you say Company X is ‘Responsible’ when they….”):
“The challenge with ever publishing a list of socially responsible companies is that almost every company (particularly the big ones) has some (non-organic) dirt in its closet. See our definition for “what’s responsible” above.
“And for some folks, ‘business’ almost by definition is evil. On this point we strongly disagree. Businesses have to part of the solution, and have the potential for enormous good. It’s important to support the companies making great progress.”
The response continues by noting that the site is in “beta,” further deflecting accountability, but the point they make is still valid. Creating a list of socially responsible companies that we can all be proud of (and find no fault in) is nearly impossible. I don’t like half-baked solutions, but in lieu of fully-baked ones, I’ll take a job site that at least attempts to differentiate the socially responsible from the what-the-heck-is-CSR ones.
That said, I did a quick search for jobs in the Boston area and didn’t really see a difference between listings on the site and what I would expect to find elsewhere. The companies that had job listings didn’t scream “socially responsible” to me, nor did the positions that were listed. Without further research, it will be difficult to determine if this service is merely trying to ride a wave or truly doing the due diligence to filter out all but the most socially responsible companies.
As a matter of comparison, here are a few sites to check out that I have visited before:
Here’s another interesting press release from CSRwire.com: Highlights of Toyota’s Environmental Progress. I found the information regarding the Brazilian market to be the most interesting piece of data.