When we think of controversial industries, the usual culprits spring to mind… oil, arms, pharma, mining, gambling, tobacco… the favorites on the pages of Corporate Watch magazine. More recently the obesity debate has turned the spotlight on the food and drinks industry while revelations over irresponsible and unethical investment have implicated financial services.
The question is, why do some companies find themselves labeled as controversial and others don’t? What about the technology sector? There are growing stockpiles of discarded ICT equipment which the developed economies send to Africa – often to serve no useful purpose simply becoming mountains of technological waste. Is this controversial or just irresponsible?
The truth is that a ‘controversial industry’ is a concept created and updated by the media. Controversy is nothing more or less than outraged public opinion. It’s the result of a mistaken PR campaign, the emergence of an unfortunate issue related to a particular industry, or simply a run of bad luck.
However, while controversy is a manufactured phenomenon, it is a real problem. For some industries there is no going back – the fact that tobacco can kill you will never be undiscovered. But for others, controversy is something that can be managed – and can certainly be avoided. Pharmaceuticals is an industry marred in controversy, partly due to the nature of the business and partly due to questionable business practices (see below). In short, controversial industries are the cautionary moral tale of CSR: be responsible, or get caught out.
Related News
Oil and mining in violent places
Voluntary codes of conduct for the extractive industry is not guaranteeing human rights in war zones according to a report from Global Witness, the organisation that specialises in the link between environmental exploitation and human rights abuses. Oil and Mining in Violent Places: Why voluntary codes for companies don’t guarantee human rights was published on October 10 and considers the effectiveness of four existing voluntary frameworks – the UN Global Compact, the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, the GRI and the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights. It concludes by calling for a worldwide enforceable standard, which will also be bound by international law, so that companies do not support, even if it is inadvertently, human rights abuses and ends by stating: “Voluntarism on human rights has reached its limits.”
New sanctions imposed by the EU on Myanmar (Burma) will force several companies to cease trading with the country. The TUC has identified seven British companies including timber firms, three top jewellers – Asprey, Harrods and Leviev – as well as a mining finance firm that will have to severe links with the regime. The statement by the TUC was released on October 18 and follows an announcement from exclusive jewellery company Cartier on October 3 that it would cease trading with Burma.
A new report from Consumers International, the world federation of consumer groups, has accused drugs companies of lavishing gifts upon doctors in developing countries in order to increase prescriptions of their drugs and boost sales. Drugs, Doctors and Dinners was released on October 31 and reports that this practice of “pervasive marketing” is partly to blame for the 50% of medicines wrongly prescribed in the developing world. The report accuses multinationals including GSK, Novartis, Roche and Wyeth of taking advantage of weak regulation, promoting “inappropriate drug use” and failing to disclose all the possible side-effects of a drug in advertisements in health journals. Other companies named in the report include AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Sanofi-Aventis.
The report forms part of the CI’s campaign – Marketing Overdose – which is calling for governments and the pharmaceutical industry to support the independent provision of information about healthcare, to increase the transparency of the funding of patient groups and to ban gifts to doctors.
Power companies failing on tackling climate change
Britain’s biggest energy companies are failing to adequately address global warming and to adopt more sustainable business models according to two reports published by WWF-UK at the end of September.
UK Power Giants Talking Climate Change 2007 considered the companies’ positions on 10 key issues surrounding climate change and energy policy, and UK Power Giants Generating Climate Change 2007, compiled independently on behalf of WWF-UK by Innovest for the third year, benchmarked the companies according to performance on carbon emissions, energy efficiency and renewable energy. Centrica and ScottishPower did relatively well in both reports but EDF Energy and RWE npower performed poorly overall. According to WWF none of the companies scored highly in either of the reports and therefore have “some way to go before they can be regarded as a wholly progressive clean energy company”. The companies benchmarked were Centrica, Scottish Power, Scottish and Southern Energy, EDF Energy, E.ON UK and RWE npower.
Camelot reduced its carbon dioxide emissions by 29% in the past year it announced on October 26. The national lottery operator switched to green energy and 20% of the paper it uses is recycled and 60% is sourced sustainably. It is the first lottery company globally to be declared carbon neutral.
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