Corporate Social Responsibility
Corporate Social Responsibility is an aspect that has become overwhelmingly critical in the modern globalized world. The premise involves the achievement of sustainable expansion in commercial entities, whereby an organization attempts to eliminate the negative impact of its business activities. The concept of corporate social responsibility may also be geared towards meeting stakeholder requirements as well as compliance with legal and regulatory requirements. A large number of organizations in the world endeavor to make a positive impact in society by fostering conservation and preservation of the world’s ecosystems for the benefit of the next generations.
British Petroleum (BP) is one of the largest multinational corporate organizations in the world that operates in the oil and gas industry. This industry is considered as controversial as it is associated with environmental degradation to a large extent. BP has made strides in developing a unique code of ethics that promotes and fosters corporate social responsibility; nevertheless, their consistent green-house gas emission menace has elicited criticism all over the world. As an oil industry Company, BP’s strategic plan on corporate social responsibility tends to focus on environmentally friendly practices. The production of clean energy and the elimination of environmental perils is the primary focus of BP.
BP’s Code of Ethics covers all its commercial activities. This aspect is not expressly defined but is espoused in the organization’s values, which include respect, safety, courage, one team, and excellence. BP illustrates its focus on the protection of its employees, environmental surroundings, and society at large through enhancing safety standards. This strategy is devised in the formulation of safety training programs for its staff and safety guidelines to streamline its business processes. The organization has installed management processes specifically tailored to prioritize safety. Despite all these actions, BP continues to face oil spills, with the most devastating one being the BP Deep Water Horizon. The Company’s future ethical concerns are primarily engaged in enhancement of water preservation in its production zones and putting in place efficient energy production mechanisms that lower its carbon emissions. This is to be achieved through systematic and better predictions and management of oil spills. The upside is that the Company has also focused on the welfare of its communities and staff by making provision for freshwater in the localities surrounding their activities. The downside, however, is that BP’s Corporate Social Responsibility program adopts the philosophy of egotism as it is more concerned about the welfare of its blue-chip shareholders and the profits to be achieved in the clamor for sustainable business activities. In essence, BP needs to show the globe that it is assuming a sustainable corporate social responsibility role instead of claiming its current calamities management and restoration program is benchmarked on its Corporate Social Responsibility.
The Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002 under section 406 and the rules provided by the US Securities and Exchange Commission makes it mandatory for an SEC reporting corporation such as BP PLC to disclose whether it has incorporated a written code of ethics. The Code of Ethics applies to all the senior executive members of the Company and chief financial officers. It is also required to reasonably deter wrongful actions and dishonest deeds amongst such company officials. The objective is to ensure that the Company’s executive officials adhere to all government regulations and laws and be accountable by reporting any violation incidences. Failure to comply with these Code of ethics and the Act would lead to the Senior Company Executives being held individually liable for any misdeeds, particularly misdeeds or inactions relating to the integrity of BP’s financial reports. In summary, the consequences under section 302 of the Act is that the senior executive officials of the Company would be compelled to forfeit certain accrued benefits and face both civil and criminal penalties for violation. Ordinarily, if this provision was to apply on the inaccuracy of drilling precision, then CEO Tony Hayward of BP and the Head of Production might have been required to provide their luxury assets as collateral in a civil action. This is supposing the BP deepwater wells malfunctioned, causing severe oil spillages due to their inaction.
BP’s Code of conduct places an obligation on the organization’s officials to ensure compliance with all necessary legal requirements. The organization seeks to adopt policies that enhance compliance with all regulations and laws in the various jurisdictions of operation. The activities of the Company are also geared towards ensuring compliance with “Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights” in the US and UK. Discriminatory policies relating to age, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, and nationality are also immensely discouraged. Ultimately, BP is intent on making a positive impact on human progress and development such that environmental ecosystems would not be destroyed due to the world’s clamor for access to light, heat, and automobility. To this end, BP has codified its ethical standards and expressly obligated its senior executive officials to internalize, own and implement them as they are explicitly covered as the responsible officers in the rules.
BP’s Code of ethics instills an ethical culture amongst its senior company officials in its various subsidiaries across the world. The organization’s values compel executives to maintain high standards of integrity and transparency. The key objective is to impart an ethical business culture that makes the various business activities and process safe and non-perilous for the Company’s employees and surrounding communities. Ethics in the oil industry makes it a standard moral obligation for oil companies including BP to restrict the probability of their staff getting harmed while working. Decision making in BP is founded on the Company’s values, which have made safety as its top priority. Despite security being a critical issue, there have been certain limited instances of poor decisions since accountability is not strictly adhered to based on the organization’s values. However, BP has instilled a sense of responsibility by indicating that its decision-makers ought to be ultimately liable for all actions taken in the guise of sustainable development. The strength of BP’s ethical culture is that it has gained Government and NGO endorsements even amid its oil spillage crisis. This has served to spur the Company’s moral in enhancing safety procedures in a bid to protect the environment and work together as a team for environmentally sustainable clean energy solutions.
BP grants a universal responsibility to all persons in voicing and raising issues pertaining potentially perilous or unethical behavior among its staff. BP makes provision for assisting resources in a bid to enable employees to speak up and raise red flags. The four-tiered employs technology in the end upon failure of human intervention and interaction. An employee is allowed to contact their line manager, speak to other management persons in their team, contact support persons such as Legal and HR and finally raise the issue in an open talk website established by BP. The most available resource to use in this case is the technology through the open talk system. This system would be useful in avoiding scenarios where management conspires to conceal ethical concerns raised as well as distort information relating to such matters. The resource further elicits trust in the whistleblower who would feel relaxed and open up in revealing the unethical acts witnessed as opposed to facing their managers.
Whistleblowing may be agonizing at a personal level as it involves rising above loyalty and acting responsibly to avoid the cause of possible harm to the organization. Responsible whistleblowers ought to rise to the occasion and work in the best interests of the Company. Such action requires personal conviction, accountability to one’s actions, and acceptance of consequences, even if it involves the straining of relationships and destroys the aura of working together as a team. In an organizational sense, it is essential to assess whether the communication is in place, trustworthy, and not merely complacent. Data collected from the whistleblowing channels by the organization ought to be analyzed, investigated, and specific resolutions made to instill confidence in an organization’s system. Key internal steps in whistleblowing is to ensure the Code of ethics is simple and easy to internalize amongst your staff. There ought to be a user-friendly system for reporting unethical conduct that allows anonymity. The reporting framework ought to be rolled out and accepted by the employees. The external reporting steps, on the other hand, relate to the security of the whistleblowing system. The reporting framework ought to be autonomous from organizational control; hence employees’ information on unethical mannerisms will be credibly analyzed devoid of bias and influence from Company executives.
The advantage of the Federal False Claims Act is that it makes provision for whistleblower protection that enables whistleblowers to be confident and bring forth information about companies trying to defraud the Government or already committing fraud against the Government. The False Claims Act further entitles the whistleblower to financial compensation for their efforts in curbing fraud against the Government. The icing on the cake is that such monetary rewards could be substantial as the whistleblower receives a portion of Government awarded damages, which could be triple. The cons, on the other hand, are the potential discrimination and stigma that one may face in other workplaces. The aspect of being a whistleblower could make it difficult for you to get hired and further strain your relationship with co-workers. Before receiving the monetary reward for your actions, one would be subject to numerous court appointments leading to high Attorney fees.
The main objective of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines is to deter unethical conduct and take punitive measures against the corporate members and stakeholders who are involved as perpetrators. The offenses under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, including customs violations, theft, rigging, embezzlement, and extortion, are subject to various penalties under the sentencing guidelines. The penalties determination is founded on two factors including the seriousness of the offense and the culpability of the corporate entity. Ordinarily, the minimum fine measures up to the gravity of the crimes committed. Liability is, however, premised on certain tripartite interlinked principles. First, the corporation becomes highly culpable in the event high ranking officials condone, willfully, and deliberately get involved in the criminal conduct. Secondly, in enormous and highly professional business entities, criminal behavior by Senior Executives is, to a great extent, a breach of fiduciary duty and abuse of power. The culpability score, in this instance, slowly rises based on the entity’s number of employees. Lastly, the liability of an organization increases exponentially where management is complacent and tolerant of unethical conduct to a point it becomes part of the Company’s culture, and values become eroded.