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BHP Billiton's Brazil Mine Disaster Your Name Institutional Affiliation

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Added on  2021-05-27

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The reports given by BHP Billiton’s in the year 2016 and 2017 first shows a picture that the company was working so hard to improve their environmental performance ("BHP Billiton Sustainability Report 2016", 2018; "BHP Sustainability Report Between 2017", 2018). The reports given by BHP Billiton’s in the year 2016 and 2017 first shows a picture that the company was working so hard to improve their environmental performance ("BHP Billiton Sustainability Report 2016", 2018; "B

BHP Billiton's Brazil Mine Disaster Your Name Institutional Affiliation

   Added on 2021-05-27

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Running head: BHP BILLITON’S BRAZIL MINE DISASTER 1BHP Billiton’s Brazil Mine DisasterYour NameInstitutional Affiliation
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BHP BILLITON’S BRAZIL MINE DISASTER2BHP Billiton’s Brazil Mine DisasterIn the recent decades, there has been an increasing trend for multinational companies to be environmentally friendly. The reasons behind this trend have been due to social demands as well as world environmental sustainability requirements. Through these two players combined, the management of major companies in the world has been left out to decide whether to fill the gap that exists between the corporation’s disclosure and the public’s interest to verify information provided by the company. The trend has led to increased pressure among major companies to adhere to sustainability reports and frameworks such as those developed by OECD and GRI. The problem with these guidelines is that the company's management have been left out to decide what information to report and hence what can be publicly disclosed or not. This has therefore created a room where some companies can conduct inaccurate sustainability reportsby selecting on certain parts of environmental performance and leaving out others, therefore, concealing the truth. This paper seeks to critically examine the information in the sustainability reports for BHP and Vale and determine if the disclosures in the sustainability reports released were just tools for ‘‘greenwashing''. The Brazil dam disaster is one of the most known incidences that caused the environmental catastrophe in Samarco – Brazil. BHP Billiton together with Vale one of the leading mining companies in the world jointly owned iron ore mine dam that led to the disaster has been accused of having to be aware of the potential threat of the project but took no action before the incident occurred. The companies must have failed to live up to the acceptable levels of due diligence in their responsibilities as outlined in the OECD requirements for multinational companies(Szoke, 2018). A further critical analysis into the scandal has shown that most of the mining companies in the world are surrounded by a lot of controversies which in one way or
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BHP BILLITON’S BRAZIL MINE DISASTER3another contradicts their core values, visions and alleged management strategies outlined in the reports. The reports given by BHP Billiton’s in the year 2016 and 2017 first shows a picture that the company was working so hard to improve their environmental performance("BHP Billiton Sustainability Report 2016", 2018;"BHP Sustainability Report 2017", 2018). It is however ironical that the statement ‘‘so hard’’ never gained significance in 2015 when the incident happened. A number of critics of the mine disaster have argued that the two mining companies never executed their roles with any diligence at a ‘‘little extra’’ effort. Since BHP Billiton and Vale never stated in their sustainability reports that they had perfect environmental performance, I think we can categorize them as two among the greenwashing firms.The Balance Between Security and TransparencySince the incident occurred, it appears to me that the companies have done a little as a way of reacting to the disaster("How BHP and Vale react next to Brazilian dam failure will be critical", 2018). For BHP, the management moved swiftly by making a site visit to express sympathy for the communities and workers who were affected by the incident("BHP Billiton | News releases", 2018). The management of Samarco mine just placed a plain announcement in its website giving an outline to the society of their commitment to emergency and transparency issues and that plans were underway("Samarco announces a change in CEO and reaffirms focus on resuming operations - Samarco", 2018). Vale also gave a ‘‘small notice’’ on its website to recognize the incident and that they were initiating emergency plans with Samarco to come up with a long lasting remedy("Statement regarding Samarco ́s accident", 2018). To me, all these reactions appears plain since the full details that led to the disaster were never stated In contrast with what Samarco, Vale and BHP never mentioned, the Minas Gerais environmental state prosecutor shed more light into the matter. The prosecutor argued that the
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