Organizations are part of society and thus, it is important that they take care of the society well being while performing their operations. Another requirement which the business houses need to perform is related to Sustainability- the requirement to use natural resources responsibly so as these are not depleted and available for future generations to come.
BP, one of the largest oil and gas companies on a global level is being known for its strong corporate social responsibility and sustainable development practices. However, the company has been alleged to destroy natural resources on account of their fire in their Deepwater oil rig (Bryant, 2020).
The incident has happened in 2010 when the oil started leaking into the sea and has caused the explosion into the sea. Other than this, there was oil leakage over the large area of the sea as well as on wetland areas. As per BP, the device which was installed in order to control pressure in the oil well failed to perform and this make the oil and other fluid spill over into the sea.
Looking into the corporate responsibility and sustainability requirement from BP, the company shall have excellent equipment in place and have similar quality contingency plans to recover from such incidents at the earliest possible time. (Mobus, 2012)
As per BP statements, they have used more than 10 different methods in order to stop the leakage. The effort to remotely close the blowout preventer, putting heavy mud in the well goes in vain and temporarily stoppage can be made by bolting a sealing cap. This make an impression that the company was with contingency plans in order to manage any such condition. However, the time taken in order to completely stop the slippage was huge. It takes more than 3 months to temporary stop the leakage and more than 6 months to permanently stop the same. This huge time taken by the company in order to stop the leakage has affected more than 1000 miles of the area within sea with 200 miles being heavily oiled. Other than this, a wetland near 80 miles was impacted by this leakage. There are some other reports which show the much higher areas being impacted (Bryant, 2020).
This was one of the unfortunate experiences which not only affected the seawater, sea life, wetland and even the BP reserves and market price. The reaction of the companies and organizations involves are more unfortunate to see. All of the companies involved whether it is BP, Halliburton or Transocean start playing the blame game. The last two companies are assisting in plant & machinery at the well. BP blamed both of these companies for their cement job and non-original parts being used by Transocean. However, both the companies put the blame back on BP by raising questions on their specification as well as known inefficiency in their plant.
Looking into the above reactions the reactions of the organization involves seems to be much unfortunate of the incident. None of the organization involved accepts the fault and every organization involved keep putting the onus on other parties involved.
This shows that the claims made in the corporate social responsibility as well as in sustainability report of the companies are more like the numbers and the efforts which helps them to increase their profitability. Any event which will not increase the profits does not attract any of the organization and they laid back on such issues. (Crane,et.al, 2019)
Organizations are reflecting their corporate social responsibility as they are aware that even customers are looking into CSR and sustainability of the companies before accepting their products. Looking above, the companies need to take high care of CSR and sustainability is not only the matters which decrease their cost but also in the matters, which involves environmental protection and safety. Even this, will help them in building long term image and to get revenues as well profits numbers out of it. (Albuquerque e. al, 2019)
Reference List:
Albuquerque, R., Koskinen, Y. and Zhang, C., 2019. Corporate social responsibility and firm risk: Theory and empirical evidence. Management Science, 65(10), pp.4451-4469.
Bryant, B., 2020. Deepwater Horizon And The Gulf Oil Spill – The Key Questions Answered. [online] the Guardian. Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/apr/20/deepwater-horizon-key-questions-answered> [Accessed 12 April 2020].
Crane, A., Matten, D. and Spence, L. eds., 2019. Corporate social responsibility: Readings and cases in a global context. Routledge.
Mobus, J.L., 2012. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting by BP: revealing or obscuring risks?. Journal of Legal, Ethical and Regulatory Issues, 15(2), p.35.
