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Ethics, Negligence, and Environmental Issues in Business

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Ethics in Business 1. Discuss the ethical, negligence, and environmental issues you see in this case. BP’s negligence resulted in severe repercussions for the company, employees, and the environment. After being advised on multiple occasions of the issues concerning maintenance of pipelines, BP’s behavior in the issue of the Prudhoe Bay pipeline can be seen as unethical because it did not meet its social responsibilities/obligations to the community or its employees. Ignoring these obligations resulted in the busting of a BP pipeline that put the health and safety of its employees at risk and endangered lives of persons and wildlife in the immediate community. In addition to this BP also violated the trust of both the local and global …show more content…

There would of course be fines charged for not adhering to the established policies and procedures and testing for erosion, defects, and safety would be performed at regular intervals as determined by the government officials. In addition to this annual reports on safety and maintenance would be submitted revealing any areas for concern and what would be done to meet guidelines and make improvements. The problem to be investigated is how reducing cost in pipeline maintenance and refinery safety impacted the business’ stakeholders. Reducing cost in any business is at times necessary, however as with all decisions there must be a balance maintained as this could have implications to both internal and external stakeholders. In this case, BP developed a business culture known for intense efforts to reduce cost that had impact on both environmental safety and employee safety. This paper will give a brief overview of the decisions made by BP that resulted in events that affected various stakeholders as well as the company itself. BP had experienced several setbacks from January 2005 through 2006. An explosion in Texas City, Texas that killed fifteen employees and injured hundreds of others at a refinery in 2005 as well as other events tarnished the BP’s public image (Jennings, M. 2009). In March 2006 the Prudhoe Bay pipeline burst spilling over 267,000 gallons of oil. It was discovered that the pipeline leak was due to severe corrosion and resulted in both

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