Environmental Degradation - Rio Tinto Unsustainable Business Practice - Case Study Example

REFLECTIVE JOURNAL By Name Course Instructor Institution City/State Date Reflective Journal Environmental Degradation - Rio Tinto Unsustainable Business Practice Environmental degradation in my own understanding can be defined as the environmental deterioration through resources’ depletion like soil, water and air; ecosystems’ destruction as well as the wildlife extinction (Johnson et al., 1997, p.583). From this point of view I remember reading about the unsustainable business practices carried out by Rio Tinto, which had experienced a commodity boom during the 2008 global recession. This boom was steered largely by the growth of China and India, which generated the extraordinary demand for precious stones, mineral resources as well as coal. i think this was sarcastic considering that while other companies were disabled by the financial crisis, mining companies continued doing better than the general market, as consumer sector that depend heavily on demand from industrialised economies endure challenges to recover. Nearly all mining companies surfaced from the 2008 crisis with balance sheets that were robust, but this failed to deliver for employees considering that mining is the most dangerous industry across the globe. My environmental degradation case study is based on Indonesian Grasberg Mine, based in West Papua that exhibits Rio Tinto project on mining that went intolerably wrong (Richard, 2010). Grasberg Mine as I noted was a joint venture between Rio Tinto (the biggest shareholder) and U.S. based corporation called Freeport-McMoRan. I also realized that the Grasberg Mine is the biggest single producers of both gold and copper in the world, and has the biggest recoverable copper reserves as well as the biggest single reserve of gold across the globe. Grasberg Mine has resulted in huge environmental destruction in West Papua attributable to the Illegal waste dumping of materials such as toxic metals, into the river system. while going through WALHI reports, a leading environmental group in Indonesia, it came to my attention that Grasberg Mine has by now disposed more than one billion tons of mine dumps into the nearby river system, leading to increased concentrations of copper in the West Papua rivers (Richard, 2010). WALHI projection that Grasberg Mine will dump roughly 3.5 billion metric tons of tailings, in spite of the fact that waste disposal into rivers is explicitly banned under Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) send chills down my spine. While still young (1996) the local residents rioted, destroying the company operating equipments forcing the company to be non-operational for 72 hours.  But that to corruption, Rio Tinto’s partner, Freeport-McMoRan allegedly begun offering considerable financial assistance to the Indonesian military and government to make sure Grasberg Mine was protected. I wonder how a company can build a military infrastructure and buy vehicles all summing up to $35 million and also pay a minimum of $20 million to police and military in Papua in a span of 6 years for free; obviously they were looking for protection. Since such big investments serious violations of human rights have taken place close to the Grasberg Mine and both partners (Freeport-McMoRan and Rio Tinto) have been blamed for involvement because of their dependence on the police and military for security at Grasberg mine.  It perplexes me that the security forces in Indonesian took part in torture, vanishings, and indiscriminate killings of local people who mainly opposed the mine operations (Richard, 2010). This prompted Norway to delete Rio Tinto from its Government Pension Fund because of ethical issues brought about by how Grasberg mine run.  Utilitarianism - Animal Experiments In theory, I can define utilitarianism a normative ethics theory suggesting that the suitable guiding principle is the one that capitalizes on utility, generally described as reducing the negatives or suffering and maximizing total benefit (Catalano, 2011, p.133). In utilitarianism I was taught to perform anything that will generate the greatest pleasure/delight for the record number of persons. For instance, if my president can make use of eighty soldiers as a trap in war and in so doing attack the enemy force thereby killing hundreds of them, then that from a utilitarianism point of view is ethically a good option although the eighty soldiers can as well be lost. With regard to animal experiments, lots of people including my friends believe that using animals for experiments bare no implication to an average Australian, but absolutely it does. I think that any individual donating to a medical charitable trust is possibly helping to finance research through animals’ experimentation. So in my view I think it is important to have a central knowledge of the impacts, issues on animals as well as the alternatives, to permit for the making of a knowledgeable decision with regard to whether it is suitable to monetarily support what has turn out to be a multi-billion dollar business. Even though from utilitarianism point of view animal experimentation is beneficial, I think the invasive utilisation of animals for teaching and experimentation is intrinsically incorrect. I agree with Foëx (2007, p.750) that the using animals for teaching and research are more rooted in history and tradition than being based on science. I am not opposing scientific progresses in Australia, but I am against using animals to archive that scientific progress. These days animal experimentation is a multi-billion dollar industry, involving the chemical and pharmaceutical industries as well as government and university bodies (Animals Australia, 2013). It saddens me to hear that over six million animals are used every year in teaching and research in New Zealand and Australia. Scores of those animals undergo through extreme stress and/or pain during the experimental process or because of the setting wherein they are reserved before and/or subsequent to the experimental procedures. Australia is yet to publish national animal teaching and research statistics as mentioned by Animals Australia (2013), but nearly all States now collect them and publish them independently. Utilitarianisms allows animal interests to be traded away to achieve the greatest good, which in my view is cruelty and brutality (Foëx, 2007). Rather than using animals for experiment as supported by utilitarianism proponents, I think the current Australian government should enact laws that support alternative teaching aids accessible to meet the similar or more valuable educational goals as those presently being met while using animals so as to preserve animal rights. I hold the view that the life of an animal has inherent significance to that animal and bestows ethical status to that entity. Therefore, we as humans lack any right to use other animals regardless of potential benefits to humans as supported by utilitarianism. Deontological Ethics- The Fading Science amongst Healthcare Workers Deontological ethical systems are attributed by concentrating upon devotion to autonomous ethical duties or rules (Pollock, 2011, p.25). Therefore, so as to make the right ethical choices, I think we must comprehend what constitutes our ethical issues as well as what acceptable rules are present to control those duties. When following my duties, I believe I am behaving ethically, but when I fail to follow my duties, I behave unethically. Usually in any deontological ethical system, my obligations, rules, and duties are decided by God. Therefore, I think being ethical is therefore a matter of being obedient to God. Recently, a situation cropped up at sub acute floor, where a nurse was unable to carry out the value in offering secure, competent, compassionate and moral care on a busy night shift on a local hospital. During this night, there were 7 total-care heavy patients, and so the nurse was required to administer several medications, and offer the needed care. At the night, two patients fell, and so the nurse had to attend to these patients. Subsequent to making certain these two patients were unhurt, administering the needed medications, and finishing all needed assessments, there was no time for the nurse to offer night care (Ray, 2011). Four of the patients slept without being washed, and the nurse was not able to perform safety checks on her patients conducted after every hour, and this made her feel like she had wasted the all night devoid of seeing a number of her patients. This incident influenced the nurse extremely, and she felt less capable of offering secure care to her patients (Ray, 2011). Without doubt, I think the pace at which this nurse completed her duties put her together with patients in danger, and the entire shift appeared messy. Two years down the line, I was told that the nurse has never accepted any shift on the sub acute floor. In my view, the hurdle facing the nurse is being able to forget this issue considering that it took place at an organizational level attributed by the hospital cuts in budget. The hospital was hesitant to hire more care aids or nurses or so to lessen the workload. Deontologists hold the view that moral behaviour standards subsist separately of means or ends. Based on the elemental teaching of deontology, the workload of patient must be evenly divided amongst the nursing team (Ray, 2011). Therefore, in my understanding all nurses must be seen as the end in itself, and not only as the means. Having said that, the distribution of workload must be in line with patient acuity and not just by a general pre-allocated number; that is to say every nurse attends to less than five patients in spite of their acuity. 'Corporate Social Responsibility' - Apple’s conflict Corporate Social Responsibility can be defined as a corporate initiative in examining and taking responsibility for the impact of the company on the environment as well on social welfare. CSR by and large applies to the efforts of the company that go further than what could be needed by environmental protection groups or regulators (Torres et al., 2012, p.52). Recently, we all so in the mainstream media the imperfect transparency of Apple’s sustainability policy for its supplier was criticized. Evidently, human rights and labour have been a renowned conflict involving Foxconn one of Apple’s main suppliers. Foxconn is the world biggest contracted electronics producer, with dealings such as Sony and Dell. It came to my knowledge that Foxconn was the manufacturer of iPads and iPhones as well as had employed more than 900,000 employees, whereby 420,000 workers worked at Shenzhen plant run by the Foxconn. What mesmerised me is that this plant was a complex with fifteen factories, which includes a bank, a hospital, dormitories, a grocery store as well as cafes. The workforce work and live within the complex, under what I can term as deplorable condition. Since 2006 I have read numerous media reports concerning Foxconn; for instance, local press in china reported in 2006 on the very long working subjected to the staff and the 2010 reports from the media concerning a number of suicide cases at Foxconn. From 2009 to 2010 a total of 13 workers had committed suicide (Torres et al., 2012, p.63). Chinese media undercover investigation found that the multiple suicides reported are attributed by Foxconn military-style management approach internal management, and not the extreme working conditions. It saddens me that in this time and age workers can be banned from interact with one other as evidenced at Foxconn. Employees who infringed this rule were punished, and to make the matter worse the weekly working per each employee was roughly 70 hours, which is against 60 hours set by Apple’s Supplier Code. Even though, Foxconn factory had facilities such as tennis courts, swimming pools and organised activities like mountain climbing, chess clubs, or fishing expeditions, in my view it is hard for an overworked employee working 70-hour per week to get time to enjoy such facilities. In early 2011, I was astonished by the media reports about the worsening issues of child labour at the Apple’s suppliers of iPods and iPhones. Ironically, the 2011 Apple’s Supplier Responsibility Report acknowledged that there were 91 juvenile employees at its suppliers (Torres et al., 2012, p.64). Such reports infringe the CSR policies highlighted by both Apple together with its suppliers, and in my view calls for strict international laws with regard to CSR activities in areas affected by operation of companies like Foxconn. Child labour, overworking of employees, and limiting the freedom of employees is plainly unethical, and government, community, and international business community must be against such acts. Moral Reasoning - A Sign of Our Times Moral reasoning in my understanding is a collective or individual practical reasoning concerning what, ethically, one is supposed to do (Tiberius, 2014, p.57). A moral reasoning is evidenced by on Jennifer Dufner from North Dakota concern an advertisement that in her view was morally inappropriate. Dufner for that reason sent a letter to The Forum (newspaper) editor, with the theme focusing on the Rock 102 radio station billboard advertising as exhibited below. The billboard advertising was in a number of places around Fargo-Moorhead area and illustrated a woman in a suggestive and provocative scene (Gilmore & Legler, 2011, p.141). According to Dufner, her issue with the billboards was that the community lacked the control to avoid seeing the advertisement. I concur with Dufner that the advertisement was not good for adolescent girls seeing the billboard message that makes them think that the value as humanity arises from something sexual. The billboard message was not also good for the adolescent boys since it could make them value women only as sexual human beings. I fully support Dufner in her moral understanding, considering that it is not right for mainstream media such as Rock 102 radio station to subject adolescent children to such a message on the billboard. In my view, the local government must be hold accountable for failing to regulate such moral issues. Dufner laments that it is too bad for the local government to lack a decree managing the outdoor advertising content (Gilmore & Legler, 2011, p.142). Figure 1: Case Billboard Picture (Gilmore & Legler, 2011, p.142) I believe that in this time and age advertisers have sufficient prevalent decency that do not allow them to put immoral images in billboards that can easily be seen by children. This situation is an attention-grabbing moral issue, and if allowed I can group it as a moral dilemma for the reason that it is multifaceted and it has scores of conflicting views. Considering that the diverse stakeholders have various goals, and such stakeholders may well not have the same opinion concerning the right or wrong answer to the moral issue. This advertisement, according to my knowledge presents moral issues like equality, respect, rights of diverse persons on both sides of the moral issue, the effects that can be caused by this advertisement act, the increase of the same advertisements on magazines as well as television and, and the beliefs and values of those decision makers who created the image or permitted it to be illustrated (Gilmore & Legler, 2011, p.142). This is without doubt is a media morals issue in addition to a business morals issue, and thanks to Jennifer Dufner moral reasoning what is right and wrong has been revealed. The intensity and awareness of the moral issue is as well of significance, and so advertisers must know what may turn out to be immoral or offensive, as well as at the right time the company should act in response to the issue. References Animals Australia, 2013. Animal Experimentation. [Online] Available at: http://www.animalsaustralia.org/issues/animal_experimentation.php [Accessed 29 October 2014]. Catalano, J.T., 2011. Nursing Now!: Today's Issues, Tomorrow's Trends. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: F.A. Davis. Foëx, B.A., 2007. The ethics of animal experimentation. Emergency Medicine Journal, vol. 24, no. 11, pp.750-51. Gilmore, R. & Legler, J., 2011. A Sign of Our Times? A Case Study on Moral Reasoning. Teaching Ethics, pp.141-48. Johnson, D.L. et al., 1997. Meanings of environmental terms. Journal of Environmental Quality, vol. 26, pp.581–89. Pollock, J., 2011. Ethical Dilemmas and Decisions in Criminal Justice. New York: Cengage Learning. Ray, 2011. Ethical Culture: Deontological Perspective for Case Study. [Online] Available at: http://ethical-culture.blogspot.com/2011/02/deontological-perspective-for-case.html [Accessed 29 October 2014]. Richard, 2010. Rio Tinto: A Shameful History of Human and Labour Rights Abuses And Environmental Degradation Around the Globe. [Online] Available at: http://londonminingnetwork.org/2010/04/rio-tinto-a-shameful-history-of-human-and-labour-rights-abuses-and-environmental-degradation-around-the-globe/ [Accessed 29 October 2014]. Tiberius, V., 2014. Moral Psychology: A Contemporary Introduction. New York: Routledge. Torres, C.A.C. et al., 2012. Four Case Studies on Corporate Social Responsibility: Do Conflicts Affect a Company’s Corporate Social Responsibility Policy? Utrecht Law Review, vol. 8, no. 3, pp.51-73. Read More