Essay --

When John Browne set in motion the strategy that put BP on its course to become a â€Å"green† oil company, his plans seemed ripe with promise. Despite criticisms of â€Å"green-washing,† the company enjoyed recognition and admiration from the media and non-government organizations, and rose in the public esteem as an advocate for investments in renewable energy technology and responsible energy use. For years, the move looked to be good strategy: the benefits of the decision seemed to offset the costs incurred to implement it, some of which included: †¢ Risk of minimal benefits if policies or requirements do not change †¢ Foreclosing on future non-green opportunities †¢ Impacting the company’s portfolio of non-green products †¢ Committing to future green investments †¢ Creating a â€Å"higher bar† for ongoing business practices †¢ Increasing the cost of blunders or accidents on the company’s credibility and public standing BP might have understood the price it was paying for its green personality, but the company seems to have underestimated the latter two cost descriptors. Its newfound environmental acclaim and the public awareness that came with it brought closer scrutiny to the company’s ongoing activities and much higher expectations for how it would conduct its business moving forward. The Texas City tragedy in 2005 and the Prudhoe Bay spill of 2006 should have been lessons to the company: unless it can get the basics of corporate responsibility right, drawing public attention to its business is inviting trouble. Disaster at the Macondo Well On April 20, 2010, a BP exploratory well at Macondo exploded, causing 11 deaths, sinking Deepwater Horizon and starting a massive oil leak, that persisted for weeks. The event highlighted BP’s inability t... ... the industry and the multitude of spills occurring since the Deepwater Horizon events point to a much lesser impact on the industry’s performance. Alas, large-scale environmental abuses such as the repeated spills in the Niger Delta, where spills are responsible for degradation equivalent to the Exxon Valdez disaster yearly, are not widely discussed, and much information is still obscured from the public. As non-market pressures increase for corporations around the globe, the hope is that companies will learn from the longer-term de-valuation effect suffered by BP and take its economic value into account. There is hope for responsible behavior; bright will be the day when instead of being more than marketing campaigns, environmental and social responsibility outreach by major companies will exist to maximize social objectives, subject to profitability constraints.