Ethics can be defined as the discipline dealing with what is good and bad or right and wrong with moral duty and obligation (Ward 13). Organizations usually come up with new ideas and the way they implement it matters the most. Some organizations are faced with very tough decisions that they cannot make without being unethical. Some organizations end up going the unethical way at the expense of the social standards that they are meant to uphold. Others make their unethical decisions based on the fact that the loss the organization will make is not the same as the loss the people will suffer once the unethical decision is made.
The organization that will act as the case study in this case made some bad decisions when carrying out the dumping of their oil waste in Ivory Coast. Trafigura a multinational organization that was formed in 1993 that majorly trades in base metals and energy was faced with a tough decision when they were supposed to dump their waste products. In 2006 the organization irresponsible behavior caused health crisis in Ivory Coast that affected a total of 108,000 people (Shiva 25).
Trafigura had leased a ship to transfer waste product s to Netherlands where the processing plant was located. Due to the high toxic levels that were in the waste that was supposed to be transported to Netherlands, the company was actually meant to spend more than it actually had planned. To be precise, it was going to cost the company 20 times more than it used to pay (Shiva 27).
The company decided to be smart and avoided the charges that they would pay if the waste was tobe transported. The management ordered the ship to dock at other seaports until they could find someone who was willing to dump the waste on their behalf. That is when Compagnie Tommy, a company that is located in Ivory Coast where the ship, decided to dock. The Compagnie Tommy went ahead and dumped the waste illegally (Ward 78).
Many people fell sick due to being exposed to the waste that led to the investigation of the cause of the sickness. United Nations did a research on the issues and concluded that the waste products that were dumped there were the main causes of the illnesses. Now the question was whether the Trafigura did the dumping intentionally or not.
Trafigura denied claims that the waste products were not as toxic as the UN reports claimed and that it had no connection with Compagnie Tommy dumping the waste in the Ivory Coast. This issue went viral and forced the newsrooms to come to the rescue. Newspapers were ready to publish their own findings that showed that the company was guilty of dumping the waste products in Ivory Coast and the company was aware that the waste was toxic. In addition to that they were willing to escape the cost that they were to incur if they used the right channels of dumping the waste.
As usual the big organization came to its defense and went to court to prevent the publishing of the reports by the news rooms. The guardian newspaper specifically was the one with the conclusive evidence of the involvement of the Compagnie Tommy Company and the Trafigura Company in the dumping of the waste in Ivory Coast. Trafigura tried to stop this but the MP Evans Harris questioned the freedom of the media in the country. Also in addition to that, the twitter campaign spread the news so fast and it was too late for Trafigura to stop the information from reaching the public. In the long run, the guardian newspaper published the story.
The collaboration between Compagnie Tommy and Trafigura Company in the waste management led to unethical acts that affected social well-being and undermined human dignity. It led to sicknesses in Ivory Coast and also an attempt to deny the media its rights.
In my opinion this situation could have been handled better just not be the ones crossing the ethical lines and causing conflict. From the look of things Trafigura Company makes close to 80 billion USD per year. Transporting the waste to Netherlands would not have cost them the 80 billion USD; it would have been much less. Just because the company did not want to spend the money they were meant to, which is valid as operational cost for any company, they decided to keep the money and cause deaths in a poor African country.
Another way that they could deal with this problem without spending was to look for an isolated area where there is no form of life because of the harsh environmental conditions of that area and decide to dump the toxic waste there (Shiva 56). This would not have interfered with any form of life and cause illnesses like it did in Ivory Coast.
Trafigura was also unethical when the company decided to deny claims and try to silence the media. A good move would be to let the media do their work and proceed to court to defend its “innocence” (Ward 178).
Works Cited
Shiva, Vandana. Soil Not Oil: [securing Our Food in Times of Climate Change]. New Delhi: Navdanya, 2007. Print.
Ward, Stephen J. A. Ethics and the Media: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2011. Print.
