An Audit Of Beyond Petroleum 's Ethical Practices

Currently headquartered in London, BP is one of the largest producers of both oil and natural gas. BP provides its customers with fuel for transportation and energy for heat and light. BP’s core business is gas exploration and production division and their main sources of production include Angola, Argentina, Australia, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Trinidad, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States (BP PLC (BP) Company Profile | Reuters.com. (n.d.). Retrieved October 27, 2015.). In 2013, BP produced 628,000 barrels of oil each day in the US and was the sixth largest producer of natural gas. Each day, BP sells 50 million gallons of fuel in the US consisting of 7,500 BP branded locations located in 13 states. BP is always seeking new opportunities for advancement in technology so that their operation is safer and more efficient. The company is leading the way in in the energy industry with the world’s largest supercomputer used for commercial research, located in Houston and also the first to use drones in the United States. To further place themselves ahead in the industry, BP has invested over $160 million in 2 dozen companies for advancements in technology. BP currently has 17,000 employees and on average, donates approximately $30 million each year to community

Many companies have ethical decisions that need to be and sometimes those decisions can affect many individuals or just a few. Making ethical decisions may be placed solely on one person’s shoulders or it may be a decision that multiple individuals must be involved in. There are several ethical issues in the Richardson Drilling case that should be considered. For instance, bribery, purchasing substandard parts with lack of disclosure that causes injuries, and revealing sensitive information. One potential ethical concern that could arise has to do with ongoing health insurance and the employer’s responsibility.

A wealthy British gentleman by the name of William D’Arcy is the founder of the world famous gas station BP. D’Arcy had a thrill over oil and decided to invest all of his savings in the quest for oil in the Middle East. Experts and scientists helped encourage D’Arcy to pursue the venture. But years started to pass and funds starting to run low, William was starting to feel as if this was the wrong investment. Throughout the years BP has gone through a plethora of ups and downs. From bankruptcy, to not being able to transport oil to desired location, and also having more oil than they could sell and not having a demand for it. Also BP has had disasters related to social responsibility, and before the major oil spill in 2010,

There are very few aspects of how a company behaves as a corporate citizen that do not apply to a company of the size and nature of BP. The most significant of these are the sheer environmental impact - not simply of the extraction of oil and the energy use of BP's own operation, but more significantly of the impact on climate change of the actual use of all the oil by BP's customers. The state of current scientific evidence raises serious question marks over whether or not human society can actually afford to burn all the hydrocarbons whose existence we have already identified - never mind potential future discoveries. Twenty years ago, people worried that one day the oil would run out. Now, it is the case that the real issue has been identified as one of emissions.

(BP) happens to be one of the largest oil and gas companies in the world. There operations include the exploration and production of natural gas and crude oil; to include the refining of crude oil; and the manufacturing of petroleum products.

To this day, researchers and scientists are gathering data to try and understand the oil spill and the impact it’s had on the Gulf coast, it’s communities and marine life. The well was capped off on July 15, 2010, which was eight-seven days after the explosion and sinking of the oil rig and was declared sealed on

the decisions made by BP and to some extent by Transocean and Halliburton, were the main reason for the

The oil also has a physical and physiological effect including irritation, inflammation, or necrosis of the skin, chemical burns, ingestion of oil/dispersants can lead to inflammation, ulcers, bleeding, as well as possible damage to liver, kidneys, and brain tissue. It can also cause disfunction of the immune and reproductive system. The wildlife can become physiologically stressed, their physical condition will ultimately decline, and some may even die. The oil spill has additionally had an extensive effect on the ecosystem as a whole. An ecosystem can be defined as a biological environment consisting of all the organism living in a particular area, as well as the non-living physical components of the environment with which the organisms interact. Experts predict that the ecosystem could require years or even decades to fully recover since there is a chance of biomagnification. Biomagnification occurs once a PBT(Persistent Bioaccumalative substances) have piled up in one part of the ecosystem the substance becomes concentrated from one link in the food web to the next. It can affect entire populations and threaten biodiversity in “insidious, sub-lethal” ways. In addition to the possibility of biomagnification the oil causes

The series of ethical issues that took place leading to the disaster are complex, and other factors such as economic and political issues arose after the catastrophe happened. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the ethical issues that took place before the disaster happened, and investigate the moral obligations, social responsibility and justice at an individual and organizational level. The ethical dilemma is broken down into three categories, which include the company’s management priority to reduce costs and time, neglecting safety issues addressed by staff, human misjudgment and errors in neglecting pressure reading; and finally, overlooking the technical design flaws that were not tested by BP before installing to use. The

BP has had a long history of ethical and legal violations because BP chose to put profits above all else. In the past twenty years, BP subsidiaries were convicted of environmental crimes in Texas and Alaska. In addition, BP received the biggest fine in US history regarding safety violations. Although BP accepted responsibility, their record showed questionable and illegal behavior for twenty years. One of BP's major issues happened in a Texas refinery close to Galveston in 2005 (Jennings, 2009). This explosion took the lives of fifteen workers and injured five hundred people and caused residents nearby to become sheltered in their homes (Jennings, 2009). The US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation board concluded that BP had

Although the accident was caused by a mechanical failure, it spiralled out of control because of an insufficient safety system. BP acted inefficiently and their carelessness cost the lives of people and damaged the environment, nevertheless this does not mean they acted in an unethical way as

As this case shows Human Rights violation BP, The company was lacking operational decisions, such as ensuring that safety standards are appropriate for employees; rather than pursuing additional profits and hiding behind a mask of public relations. Viewed from this perspective, ‘calculated casualties’ don’t provide the greatest amount of good; it simply highlights an unethical and ruthless pursuit of profits and hence environmental destruction and human deaths would widely be considered unethical.

Ethics are very important in the business world and to the general public. Ethics is defined as a system of moral principles or the rules of conduct recognized in respect to a particular class of human actions or a particular group. Using a moral compass should be a requirement for every CEO and executive. Any person who will have some impact on society needs to understand the difference between right and wrong. Since businesses touch such a large segment of our society, codes of ethics must be established and followed to protect the general public. In the following pages we will discuss the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster and examine how it relates to (1) the state of business ethics since 2000, (2) examples of the classic

Chevron considers itself as an ethical organization. Among Chevron's basic code is Integrity and honesty, which they quote as:

According to BP’s Code of Conduct, BP ”commits to “excellence and to the disciplined management of our operations” (BP, 2013a). In this