write in the days when "Sant 'Obama from Washington" is fighting hard to pass the law establishing the old bankruptcy principle of' polluter-payer ". "The fundamental principle of environmental policy, established in 1972 within the OECD countries (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) and subsequently merged in principle 16 of Rio Declaration (UNCED) on Development and the Environment (1992).
According to this principle, the polluter should pay the full cost of environmental damage caused by its activities: this would create an incentive to reduce environmental damage. "
The objective, therefore, would be to contain the environmental damage , making their costs fall on those who caused them (thus ex post), that is, taxing companies that pollute more.
The proposed law by the urgent "obamiani" after the environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is especially designed and intended to "strike" oil companies that tend to "save" the maintenance of platforms and oil tankers that in most cases do not have adequate measures to contain oil in case of accident.
In particular if we consider it is estimated that BP is somehow "compensate" the nature of land represented by the U.S. government, ça va sans dire, with 120 (one hundred twenty) million dollars. The famous ecologist on Wall Street, all with a green thumb but only because they use their hands to count among eagerly divided by the tonnes of green color, they calculated an estimated increase between 8 and 9 cents on the dollar per barrel. Obvious that the consequences of this increase will fall consumers with an inevitable and predictable increase in consumer prices.
Given that we consider to rigor of elementary logical principle a very stupid to think you can pay off assets such as oxygen, clean air, clean water, uncontaminated soil, fauna and flora to the sound of money, whatever it is also the "revived dollar in recent weeks, we wonder whether the brilliant directors of the new messiah overseas have never considered the weakness of such a principle. In short, the "polluter pays principle" (or polluter pays "principle) would come into play too late, or when environmental disasters scope similar to that caused by BP have already taken place and especially the legislature (in this case American) is an illusion (so paranoid) it can compensate the land with cash. It 's true that the land reclamation that follow such disasters are just as complex and cost much, just look at how hard and how much effort and technical "engineering imagination" (almost an oxymoron) is required to stop one process so devastating as the one that caused BP platform in the United States. But it certainly will not be able to pay off the $ 120 million from BP rebuild reefs, the fish fauna of that part of the world and all that ecosystem that needed thousands (or not millions) of years to find one as perfect as beautiful and fragile balance.
those circumstances we are gripped by curiosity: where did it go the vaunted (and admired by many industry executives) the sustainability of BP a few years ago had the "brilliant" idea, of course, single-sided, that led her to change name from British Petroleum to Beyond Petroleum (other than petroleum)?
In addition to oil! E 'is precisely the question to be asked today. How much damage they have done and continue to make these "sustainable managers around the world, defending behind the" fig leaf "of the sustainability of the worst wickedness? In addition to the brand, logo, advertising compelling and moving as the action of mere communication and appearance, the certifications on the veracity of the accounts purchased by the company annually sponsors (this is not only for the consolidated balance sheets and also for the sustainability report and environmental), what is beyond this world of self-congratulation and self-sufficiency? Where are you going Social Responsibility (CSR - Corporate Social Responsibility)? Well
for friends of the players with the ball research and verification, today (a witness to the megalomania of certain great communicators) on the site of BP in section dedicated to sustainability and CSR (www.bp.com), you can find pompous and self-statements about the seriousness of the external auditors and independent (ie those that highly paid, have a duty to check and validate what the company says in their balance sheets and / or on its Internet portal). All that therefore direct communication to stakeholders (literally stakeholders or rather all those who, directly or indirectly, an interest in the company's). That the CSR field is in a crisis you can guess from initiatives sadly very superficial and "decorated for the feast" that circulate in our country. Just going to hear one of the many debates on the topic, where manager or manageress "(to respect the fateful meritocratic than it actually shares little pink), and lend to the matter coming from sometimes dubious and questionable career paths business on nothing pontifichino ringing slogan and hearsay from foreign colleagues. Well, in these arid and continuous debates are discussed for almost a decade of the same issues, the bounce a few ideas circulating for some time but with different "clothes". The writer is firmly convinced about the usefulness of a serious but CSR is both critical to a business environment dominated by mode, only media initiatives, slogans, marketing, and the like. Define these practices just listed "circumvention of stakeholders honest" rather than sustainability.
Being professional writer who has "dabbled" for years the stringent sustainability analysts around the world, namely those which issue the passport to the areas of sustainability indices, kept an eye closely by Socially Responsible Investors (SRI - Socially Responsible Investors) for their investment choices, I can say that more than the glossy brochures, the winning media initiatives (including new generation with the echo provided by the most popular social network in movement), spinner etc advice. what matters are the performance and numbers, but they are born and get across the enterprise unless the premises where the function resides CSR. A careful analysis of key performance indicators (KPI) related to sustainability (unless you intend to be deceptive), there will be little daily bread nor pleasant reading for everyone, but can give a clear picture of the work of a company. The function of the CSR is rather to think and organize the strategy that can, with the precious alliance of top management and in time, improve performance monitored and reported by analysts in the financial statements compiled and written seriously.
All initiatives, no media coverage or short term, but those that tend to build "best practices" are business bricks to build a solid corporate social responsibility. To move from the theoretical to the practical example, think of the MBO (Management by Objective, or the performance bonuses for managers of a company) on the objectives that fall within the principles of sustainability as it might be safety, reduced accidents, reduction of pollutant emissions to the same output, the rate of recycling of raw materials and / or simply used paper in the office and so on, would be an incentive to secure a plug to the manager (pecunia non olet) and would positive effects on performance sustainable company, this time not ex post as the polluter pays principle on which we have already discussed before, but in advance.
We hope that this exercise of ordinary logic applied to the CSR will stimulate minds and ideas and can take off again this more important than ever on to new destinations, less polluted than those that surround us today.
