Thu 21 Dec 2006
British Petroleum, BP is in trouble. Financial Times have two recent articles that report environmental negligence, loose worker safety standards, and a general tendency to cover things up and obstruct inspections (pay per view content, unfortunately). This behavior contrasts sharply with the responsible environmentally friendly image of itself that BP has been trying to promote in it Beyond Petroleum campaign. (For a critique of this campaign click here.)The reason for such misbehavior seems to be the general difficulty in enforcing regulation of multinational oil companies, together with cost-cutting pressures (particularly in the 1990s when oil prices were low). All in all, BP seems to regard social responsibility as a matter of PR, easily dealt with by investing in posh advertising campaigns. But the company obviously lacks an instrument that would enable it to take the cost of behaving unethically into its economic calculations. Actics would be a wonderful motivator for them (and for the rest of the oil industry). It would give them a direct feedback on the costs of their actions, internally,in term of diminishing loyalty and motivation among employees, and externally in terms of a tainted reputation. This way Actics could supplement state regulation with the regulatory power of the collective intelligence of the networked public.
January 23rd, 2007 at 2:56 am
[...] Just as environmentalism and demands for more social conduct is on the rise, opportunistic crooks seeking reward from the trend without merit is off course also growing in numbers. Luckily there are lot of bloggers, magazines and initiatives like Actics trying to attribute reputation to those who truly deserves and hopefully expose those that merely dress up in ‘green’ or ‘philanthropic’ clothes. Since the responsibility to do something about it is in the hands of everybody in a modern networked world, you might need to gear up in terms of awareness. As part of your new education to separate the real from the fake, start with this short post on ‘Greenwashing’ by Clownfish Marketing on PSFK. As a bonus to the post, a reader has provided a link to a report on the ten worst greenwashers in 2005 from The Green Life. Also, read Adam’s post here on one of these greenwashers, BP. [...]