Ethics

Introduction

The essay reflects upon business ethics in general and more specifically about the ethical issues raised by pollution from commercial and industrial enterprises. It discusses three important ethical approaches and a few remedies to the environmental protection. The central idea is to provide a detailed explanation on how the commercial enterprises behave towards the environment and what ethical issues are raised by their behavior. To establish the relationship between the behavior of commercial enterprises and the ethical guidelines, the essay discusses the case of a multinational company Unilever dumping its waste in a river located in South India.

For centuries now, business entities have contributed towards the environmental degradation and more often than not they have gotten away without paying the price. The reason for such a behavior could either be because business entities have seen environment as a free good or an unlimited good. There could be other reasons too, but none can justify the excessive destruction to environment that has been caused by these entities globally over the years.

Evaluation of the Case in Light of Business and Environmental Ethics
Unilever is one of the biggest FMCG multinational companies and operates in various parts of the world. Hindustan Unilever Ltd., a subsidiary of Unilever, in India was exposed by the local residents and ex-workers to have dumped huge amounts of toxic mercury in the local river and the forest behind its factory from 1984 to 2001. Although this mercury thermometer factory operated by Hindustan Unilever has been closed now, is considered a toxic hotspot with elevated, even dangerous, levels or mercury recorded inside and outside the factory.

The company had accepted the allegations and also promised to clean up the mess but environmentalists and ex-workers are of the view that the data the company has published regarding the environmental damage incurred does not measure the true costs inflicted upon the society.

Environmentalists further suggest the there is a need for an independent assessment of the social costs incurred by the company. It is further noticed that companys own CSR guidelines indicate that the mercury level in soil should be between .03-.07 kg whereas the factory site contains more than 300 KGs of mercury.

The subject of Business Ethics has developed three environmental approaches to analyze the Hindustan Unilevers case. The first and the most basic approach is the Ecological approach. This approach is of the view that nonhuman parts of the environment deserve to be preserved for their own sake, regardless of whether it benefits human beings. The approach propagates that the welfare of nonhumans is also valuable and because of this intrinsic value, the firms should respect and try to preserve them. Hindustan Unilever has done the complete opposite of that. It has disturbed the course of nature by polluting the water, marine life and also the atmosphere for the local residents. The company had failed to understand that it does not only have obligations towards the people in the society but also to the nature. It has neglected the interrelationship between the various parts of the ecological system in which the factory had operated. It failed to realize that the factory was depending on the natural environment for its energy, material resources, and waste disposal and the environment in turn was affected by excessive dumping of the toxic mercury.

The second approach towards environmental ethics is termed as the Environmental Rights approach. This approach is of the view that human beings have a right to a livable environment. This approach stems from the principle of rights and duties which states that people have a right when they have an entitlement to something and it is the duty of others to act in a way so as to either provide that entitlement or not deprive them of that entitlement. It is very clear from the case of Hindustan Unilever that it has deprived the people, living in the South Indian region, of their entitlement to a livable environment. The livable environment does not only mean a desirable environment but also something that others have a duty to provide. Hindustan Unilever has completely failed to fulfill this duty and in fact worsen the environment for the local people. And since environment is a common property of everyone, the company has also ruined it for all the people living in this world and also for the generations to come. This approach suggests a complete ban on activities which are harmful for the environment. Accordingly, we observe from the Hindustan Unilevers case, that the factory was shutdown. However, this has led to one of the several ethical dilemmas by closing down the factory, thousands of people became unemployed. The dilemma facing the government was whether it should let the factory continue to pollute the environment or shut it down causing a large number of layoffs.

The third approach to analyze this case is termed as the market approach. According to market approach, the environmental problems should be seen as market defects. This is so, because it states that the price of product must not only reflect the private costs incurred by the producer but also the external costs incurred to the society or community. Therefore if the prices do not reflect the external costs incurred through, say, environmental degradation, it would mean that the resources in the economy are not being utilized efficiently causing a market failure. According to the Hindustan Unilevers case, the company does not seem to be incorporating the huge external costs into its products pricing. In fact, the company has incurred excessive external costs in order to reduce its private costs and sell the product at very competitive rates. Therefore, by not taking account of the external costs, Hindustan Unilever had become a victim of three economic deficiencies. Firstly, the company was over producing because the demand for its products would be much less if the consumers knew exactly what they were actually paying for the products. Secondly, since the external costs were completely ignored by the company, it did not try to minimize the costs. Thirdly, Hindustan Unilever failed to distribute its products efficiently because not all the consumers had to pay the same price those who lived near the factory and were directly harmed by the toxic waste obviously paid a higher price.

Consequences of the ethical dilemma
It has been seen that people are more inclined towards making unethical decisions when they behave in a socially unresponsiveness manner, that is, when they measure their personal costs and benefits only and end up ignoring the social costs and benefits of their decision. A more ethically responsive decision making process would be when an individual would equally and appropriately measure hisher personal costs and benefits against the social costs and benefits (Hunsley, 43).

The aspect of making unethical decisions in the short-term brings its negative consequences with itself. For example, if an individual makes unethical and socially unresponsive decisions, in which he only weighs his costs and benefits, then heshe is inclined to get caught in the ethical trap. The ethical trap is a situation when a person who has already made an unethical decision is forced to make another unethical decision to support his previous decision. Therefore, not thinking ethically and not making ethical decisions leads to very critical and complex situations for organizations like Hindustan Unilever. Facing and dealing with such critical ethical dilemmas and traps is not only problem some for the organization but also wastes a lot of money of the organization. The clean-up costs that the Hindustan Unilever had to incur after the shut down if its factory is an example of the costs that organizations end up incurring once they are caught in an ethical trap. Governments of certain countries, like India, penalize such commercial enterprises in order to compensate for the social problems caused by the organization (Barnet  Cavanagh).

The ethical trap forces a person to continue making unethical decision, which in return causes a major ethical dilemma. Thus, trying to correct two unethical decisions becomes much more difficult as compared to correcting one unethical decision. The ethical trap leaves no way out for the person who gets caught in it (Hirst Thompson).

Therefore, organizations at all aspects of their lives can implement ethical decisions to avoid the life-long torture of an ethical trap or to face ethical dilemmas.

Recommendation
Unethical decisions and socially unresponsive behavior can be totally eliminated from the society if every organization starts thinking according to the welfare of the society as a whole. Unethical behavior has always arisen due to selfish and personal interest behavior. When people and organizations get obsessed with their own benefits, they turn a blind eye towards the benefits of the society. Another important aspect of making ethical decisions is to have courage and bravery to face any circumstances, which make arise after following the right path (Kotler  Lee, 2004, p74).

The Hindustan Unilever should internalize the cost of pollution by absorbing the external costs itself and reflecting it in the prices of its products. This will provide justice to the people who were being made to pay the price for the environmental degradation and it will also limit the environmental exploitation carried out by Hindustan Unilever and other such companies.

Furthermore, the company may install pollution control devices for the treatment of polluted water and also for other airborne pollutants. This will ensure that the water from the factory containing toxic waste or other pollutants may not cause environmental degradations once it is disposed off in the rivers.

Besides, Hindustan Unilever should be extremely careful in the future with its decision making processes and should be extra careful with all its operations and actions so that it does not get caught in an ethical dilemma in the future. The company should properly understand the consequences it will have to go through if it gets caught in another ethical dilemma. The cost of dealing with ethical dilemmas is high due to which the company would lose large amounts of its hard earned profits and loyal customer base too.

Conclusion
In short we conclude that the ethical dilemma that Hindustan Unilever had to face as a result of dumping toxic mercury in the river resulted in many consequences for the company itself and for the environment and for the stakeholders as well. Therefore, in order to bring the situation under control, several ethical theories and codes have been discussed in detail so that in future organizations should prevent themselves from ethical dilemmas and ethical traps.

Moreover, after critical analysis and thinking, several recommendations and solutions have also been presented in this paper so that organizations such as Hindustan Unilever follow these recommendations and lead the operations according to the proper code of ethics and CSR principles so that they can prevent themselves from facing an ethical dilemma in the future.

Organizations should be more society oriented, that is, they should work hard towards making the society and citizens happy by protecting the environment and nature of the world.

Research also shows that many successful organizations of the world have launched several environment protective programs through which they protect and improve the environment and work towards a social cause. Such actions are not profitable for the organizations in any way, but they improve the reputation and name of the organization extensively. Consumers feel loyal and good about organizations that work towards the benefit of the society and environment.

Self-Analysis Letter
The revised paper is a more detailed, comprehensible and more valuable piece of literature. It, now, provides a more objective analyses of the case and in some detail too whereas previously it was quite an opinion based paper. This objectivity has provided the paper with more convincing power and allows the reader to fully understand ant relate to the topic the reader knows that the work is based on valid ethical theories and on the feeling and beliefs of the writer. The reader should be capable of making his own opinion now on the specific ethical issues that have been discussed in the paper how a commercial enterprise should deal with an ethical dilemma, what costs should be compromised in proving oneself as a more ethically sound entity.
More specifically, the thesis of the paper is very clear now and proper support and evidence is provided, by referring to new sources, to prove the thesis. The detail in which the case is discussed in the revised paper has also become a good referencing point for the reader to understand and relate different ethical theories to the unethical activities of the commercial enterprises.
Apart from a more enlightening piece of literature, the changes made in the revised paper have also allowed me to better understand the subject of ethics and also to communicate better. I have learnt that unless the thesis is supported with objective facts and hypotheticalproven theories, there is very little weight to the words of writer that are solely based on his own beliefs, ideas and understanding of the world.