When A "Good" Company Goes Bad

How much rope does a company with a good Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) record get when they screw up?


Specifically, how much leeway does BP get for its atrocious record recently (See Timeline below) because of its groundbreaking role as the first oil company to publicly acknowledge global warming and the role of fossil fuels in it?

Do Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and Petronas get a free pass because they have not made the same effort? Or in fact actively fought such efforts, as in the case of the former (See Bloomberg, May 16, “Exxon-Funded Group to Run TV Ads Questioning Climate Change”)?

Is it possible for a non-governmental organization (NGO) to criticize one aspect of a transnational corporation’s conduct and at the same time praise another … without losing mission focus or support?

When a company promises to be socially responsible and violates that promise -- as with Google admitting censorship of searches for terms antithetical to the Chinese government violated its slogan Don’t Be Evil, it engenders greater disappointment than if it had not made the promise at all. BP is experiencing this, which brings new meaning to the term Googled.

PERSONAL ANECDOTE:
The first multi-stakeholder event I ever organized with NGOs, business, the U.S. and the United Nations took place in 1997 around the Kyoto Climate Change Conference and featured BP’s then-Vice President for External Affairs. The U.S. had not taken a leadership role at that point, while BP was out in front, having publicly left the deniers in the industry AstroTurf* front group named the Global Climate Coalition. During the Q&A, a lefty NGO commented “I never thought I would say this, but BP’s position is more progressive than the U.S. government’s.” It was true at the time.

BP TIMELINE:

September 2006 – BP executives get excoriated by elected officials and apologize during an appearance before a Congressional Committee hearing under oath, with one taking the 5th amendment against self-incrimination

August 2006 - Shut down the largest oil field in the United States, Prudhoe Bay, and its 400,000 barrels a day of production

June 2006 - U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission brings charges of price-fixing

April 2006 - U.S. Labor Department fined BP $2.4 million for safety violations at its Ohio refinery

March 2006 – BP’s Exploration Alaska subsidiary spilled more than 200,000 gallons of crude oil near Prudhoe Bay, the largest North Slope spill ever.

September 2005 - OSHA Fines BP Products North America More Than $21 Million Following Texas City Explosion

March 2005 - Explosion at its Texas City, Texas, plant claimed the lives of 15 workers and injured more than 170 others


*AstroTurf: A warm and fuzzy sounding nonprofit front group for industry that sounds like it has grassroots support for an environmental cause, i.e. the now disbanded Global Climate Coalition, which represented oil companies and campaigned against the validity of climate change.