Business Ethics Report: Coca-Cola's Unethical Practices in India

This report analyzes the unethical business practices of the Coca-Cola Company in India, highlighting the company's impact on water resources and environmental sustainability. The study examines the company's history in India, its re-entry into the market, and the controversies surrounding its operations. The report details specific instances where Coca-Cola has been accused of depleting water resources, affecting local communities and agricultural practices. It also discusses the ethical implications of these actions, including the disruption of local economies and the endangerment of residents' health. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of ethical business practices and the need for companies to consider the environmental and social consequences of their operations in different global contexts. The report also references several sources to support the claims made within the report, and includes an appendix for further information.

Running head: UNETHICAL BUSINESS PRACTICES
Unethical Business Practices
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1UNETHICAL BUSINESS PRACTICES
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
The unethical issue.....................................................................................................................2
References..................................................................................................................................5
Appendices.................................................................................................................................6
Appendix 1.............................................................................................................................6

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Introduction
The Coca-Cola Company is known to be first debuted in the country of India in the
year 1950 (Panda et al. 2017). The same was also known to withdraw its operation from India
in the year of 1977, in the protest that was raised by the regulations and legislation of Indian
Government. However, the same was recognised to re-enter the beverage market of India in
the year of 1993, dated 24th October. In this connection, it was examined that the concerned
company have been practising several unethical means of carrying up its business procedures
and works. One of the unethical practices of the same that has created an impact on the health
and lives of its consumers as well as the entire environmental sustainability of the Indian
country (Crane and Matten 2016).
The unethical issue
As stated by De Mooji (2018), Coca-Cola is considered to be one of the highly
recognised beverage brands all across the globe. The concerned company claims that they
adhere to their business process with the ethical standards and ideologies set under the legal
considerations of the Government. However, the activities of the Coca- Cola concerning the
country India, reveals an entirely different story about the working procedure of the same
(Butalia 2017). Many cases and stories regarding the improper and unethical practices of
Coca-Cola has been reported in the country of India. One of the most recent was recorded on
the date of 13th December 2016. The given case stated that the people in India accused Coca-
Cola of dehydrating the villages in the pursuit of consuming a high amount of water
resources to fulfill its manufacturing of the final product and in turn evaporating and drying
the local agricultural system of India.
In this connection, when the company was interviewed about the same, it clearly
stated that the operation of manufacturing the cold drinks could not be fulfilled without the

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use of water. The production of the Coca-Cola beverage consumed three times the amount of
water that produced its final product (Hoekstra 2017). Specifically, one litre of Coca-Cola
takes three litres of water to be accessed. Thus, the over-consumption of water resources was
recorded to be the unethical issue concerning the beverage company of Coca-Cola, India.
This unethical behaviour of the concerned company highly disrupted the health of the citizens
who were dependent on the groundwater to meet their daily needs of consuming water as
well as other household activities. Not only this, the village people had to walk too long
distances in order to get viable to fresh water. This piece of evidence clearly states that the
water resources adversely consumed by the Coca-Cola Company worsened the economic as
well as the environmental conditions of the Indian villages and also endangered the lives of
thousands of residents as well. In this connection, it was examined that this unethical issue
led to the closure of the bottling plants and manufacturing units of Coca-Cola in several
regions and villages of India.
Based on the unethical issue examined in the above report, the different villages were
the closure of Coca-Cola took place were also considered. Firstly, the region of Mehdiganj,
Uttar Pradesh, which is known to be a sizeable agrarian town, was affected (Whitworth
2015). This is because the locals there are highly reliable on the groundwater to fulfill their
agricultural purpose and the debut of the Coca-Cola plant in the region had led to drying up
of the wells and decrease in the water level. This, in turn, led to a reduction of the crop
yielding facilities in the concerned region as well as endangered the environmental
sustainability of the same till the year of 2012. Therefore, looking at the case study, it was
analysed that the Coca-Cola Company had severely affected the natural resources of water
and thus it disrupted the ethical legalisation towards laws and orders to the environmental
stability that a business entity is liable to maintain.

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Hence, to bring to the conclusion, the given report tends to state that only establishing
and expanding a business in the global presence is not vital, but maintaining the different
macro and microenvironmental factors that affect the working structure of the company is
also as much essential as setting up of the business firm in a new global presence. As
depicted by the above study it can be clearly stated that it is not necessary that a business
organisation doing well in one country and achieving active brand name and competitive
advantage in the same, will also produce the same in another global country. This because the
managers and employees are different at every different global perspective a company is
working in. The same is evident in the case of Coca-Cola, which works to its best effect in
the country of the U.S.A. but not in India.

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References
Butalia, U., 2017. The other side of silence: Voices from the partition of India. Penguin U.K.
Crane, A. and Matten, D., 2016. Business ethics: Managing corporate citizenship and
sustainability in the age of globalisation. Oxford University Press.
De Mooij, M., 2018. Global marketing and advertising: Understanding cultural paradoxes.
SAGE Publications Limited.
Hoekstra, A.Y., 2017. Water footprint assessment in supply chains. In Sustainable Supply
Chains (pp. 65-85). Springer, Cham.
Panda, A., Ghosh, B., Pal, I., Kumar, V., Bhuyan, L. and Dash, K.C., 2017. Dissolution of
Enamel on Exposure to Various Commercial Beverages Available in India. The journal of
the contemporary dental practice, 18(11), pp.1009-1013.
Whitworth, J., 2015. It’s the Environment, Stupid. In Quantified (pp. 91-112). Island Press,
Washington, DC.

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Appendices
Appendix 1