Corporate Responsibility and Governance

This essay discusses the topic of corporate responsibility and governance, focusing on the ethical dilemmas connected with the oil spill. It identifies the issues, stakeholders, and BP's perspectives, and draws a conclusion.

Running head: CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY AND GOVERNANCE
CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY AND GOVERNANCE
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CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY AND GOVERNANCE
Introduction
This essay aims to discuss the topic corporate responsibility and governance and
discuss the aspect of the ethical dilemmas connected with the oil spill. An overview of the
situation is discussed and then the issues of the ethical dilemmas are identified and then the
ethical nature of the stakeholders and the BP perspectives are discussed. A decision is drawn
from the discussion and presented in this essay. Lastly, this report concludes with an
appropriate conclusion for this report.
The British petroleum is considered to be one of the largest company of integrated
energy that operates in all the activities that are linked with the industry of oil and gas that
includes the producing, exploring, distributing, refining and the marketing of the products in
the world market (Michel et al., 2013). Each day, the production of BP is nearly four million
of natural and crude oil barrels with the capitalisation of market of 135 billion, 83 thousand
employees and revenue of 386 billion who are operating in greater than 100 countries and
owns almost service stations of more than 27, 800.
Identification of ethical dilemma
The explosion of Deepwater Horizon, which is the Drilling platform of BP in the Gulf
of Mexico happened on 20th 2010 that caused the catastrophe of biggest oil spill in the history
of industry of petroleum. A total of 11 men were killed in the accident and 17 other people
were seriously injured. Every day, a more than 150 thousand barrels of crude were spilt in the
sea for more than 5 months (Incardona et al., 2014). It covered upto 68 thousand square miles
of the surface of Gulf. Several problems contributed to this explosion on that rig, and it was
discovered during an investigation of oil spill by several governmental and non-governmental
organisations, which proved the unethical behaviour of BP that led to the disaster. Still, the
key reason despite the suggested decision by Halliburton that is one of the major

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multinationals corporations who are the providers of oilfield services was against the
installation of the oil platform (Mason et al., 2014). Still, the installation of drilling rig was
continued by BP and with the use of cheaper design of well that was suggested by several
investigators as risky.
It is without doubt established that several parties faced the consequences indirectly or
directly with the environmental disaster. All the working parties in the tourism or the seafood
industries were severely affected. The pollution led to the killing or the mutating of the
fishes, putting the workers at risk of losing the their job, and consequently increased the
prices of seafood that affected the industry of supermarkets and restaurants (Valentine et al.,
2014). However, the sector of tourism were severely affected due to the refrainment of the
people from visiting the beaches covered with oil, made them stay away from the sports
related with water or any other attractions that caused serious consequences on the tourism
sector.
Similarly, post the blow-out in Deepwater horizon, the figures of profit displayed
disappointing results, like the failing to almost 35 percent as the consequence of increased
obligations and expenditure for the individual penalties and compensation and thus loss in the
revenue generated from the oil rig (Montagna et al., 2013). The reputation of BP was severely
damaged and the finances were extensively affected that led to the loss of faith among the
stakeholders and the investors.
Evaluation of the ethical dilemma at Deepwater Horizon
From the catastrophe of BP oil spill, the oil spill in Gulf of Mexico in the year of 2010
raised the dilemma among the saving of costs by undertaking unnecessary risks that were
taken and fulfilling the criteria of safety in terms of the huge number of fatalities on platform

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rig (Sammarco et al., 2013). The utilitarianism theory is used for determining the actions of
BP and decide whether the actions were immoral or moral in nature towards society.
This theory states that the actions of any individual must be based on the rules
regarding the morals that defines whether any action is relevant to the moral of any individual
or not. The main focus of this theory is on the consequences that brings out the utilities and
decides whether the person must expense some cost from them for gaining some additional
benefits of the larger group.
The effect of the oil spill on the people and the coastal beaches who worked in the
fishing or the tourism industries were severely damaged by this spill. This accident led to the
loss of huge amount of money for the businesses (Gutierrez et al., 2013). There was a
negative impact in the marine ecosystem due to the oil and it took decades to recover from
the damages. Additionally, the cleaning of the oil spill caused several negative impacts as
well due to the utilisation of the chemicals and the burning of the oil that led to the mutations
of the creatures and it also increased the mortality due to the water and air pollution. Even
though these attempts were made for recovering from the oil spill, the people were already
severely affected from the negative concerns (Kimes et al., 2013). Heavy penalty was
imposed on BP for the negligence of the organisation towards this disaster.
However, the disaster of BP has also affected the opinion of the people positively
about the use of oil, as the people considered to switch to the sources of alternative energy as
they observed the negative consequences on the environment from oil spill. However, the
representatives of the company attempted in repairing the damage by undertaking charge and
then providing a campaign of cleaning. Several benefits were created from these actions and
numerous people had become beneficial from the activity of cleaning campaign as the

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devastation of the wildlife and the marine species has been reduced, the tourism and the
fishing sectors could have recovered at an increased pace.
Instead, BP could have been increasingly concerned about the standards of
construction of the drilling rig of oil. Therefore, this could save huge money on the cleaning
and the other fines and then invest in the projects in the future.
Conclusion
The conclusion can be drawn that the theory of utilitarianism suggests that the action
of BP was considered to the totally unethical as the oil spill caused only negative
consequences on the environment and the people and it had no valuable benefits towards the
society. It is without doubt established that several parties faced the consequences indirectly
or directly with the environmental disaster. All the working parties in the tourism or the
seafood industries were severely affected. Similarly, post the blow-out in Deepwater horizon,
the figures of profit displayed disappointing results, like the failing to almost 35 percent as
the consequence of increased obligations and expenditure.

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References
Gutierrez, T., Singleton, D. R., Berry, D., Yang, T., Aitken, M. D., & Teske, A. (2013).
Hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria enriched by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill
identified by cultivation and DNA-SIP. The ISME journal, 7(11), 2091.
Incardona, J. P., Gardner, L. D., Linbo, T. L., Brown, T. L., Esbaugh, A. J., Mager, E. M., ...
& Tagal, M. (2014). Deepwater Horizon crude oil impacts the developing hearts of
large predatory pelagic fish. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
201320950.
Kimes, N. E., Callaghan, A. V., Aktas, D. F., Smith, W. L., Sunner, J., Golding, B. T., ... &
Morris, P. J. (2013). Metagenomic analysis and metabolite profiling of deep–sea
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spill. Frontiers in Microbiology, 4, 50.
Mason, O. U., Scott, N. M., Gonzalez, A., Robbins-Pianka, A., Bælum, J., Kimbrel, J., ... &
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Michel, J., Owens, E. H., Zengel, S., Graham, A., Nixon, Z., Allard, T., ... & Rutherford, N.
(2013). Extent and degree of shoreline oiling: Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Gulf of
Mexico, USA. PloS one, 8(6), e65087.
Montagna, P. A., Baguley, J. G., Cooksey, C., Hartwell, I., Hyde, L. J., Hyland, J. L., ... &
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Sammarco, P. W., Kolian, S. R., Warby, R. A., Bouldin, J. L., Subra, W. A., & Porter, S. A.
(2013). Distribution and concentrations of petroleum hydrocarbons associated with

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Valentine, D. L., Fisher, G. B., Bagby, S. C., Nelson, R. K., Reddy, C. M., Sylva, S. P., &
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