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What if the oil companies worked together to fix the spill?
By Lauren | June 4, 2010
Sorry to keep interrupting my Friday series on keeping your business out of court, but the situation in the Gulf of Mexico is such an enormous national disaster that it has to take precedence. Yesterday, I had the privilege of speaking to the Women Business Leaders Forum of the American Society of Pension Professionals and Actuaries about - you guessed it - apologizing as a way for businesses to prevent expensive and stressful litigation. After my speech, a group of us started talking about the growing catastrophe in the Gulf when one of the meeting attendees suggested something simple, brilliant, and so obvious I can’t believe no one else has thought of it. Here’s her idea:
Post a huge reward for anyone who can figure out a way to stop the leak that actually works. It can come from the federal government, BP or both, so long as it’s available to anyone with a winning idea.
Now, here’s my spin on her brilliant suggestion: find out if any of the other oil companies have techniques or technologies that might succeed where BP has not. Yes, I know, the oil companies are all in competition and BP’s competitors may be hunkered down just waiting to see if this mess is big and expensive enough to take BP out of the game. But if that’s their thinking, they need to think again. The nastier this problem becomes, the more likely it is that the federal government will enact strict regulations that will limit the ability of all oil companies to drill off the American coastline. So if Shell, Texaco or Exxon has a bright idea, the sooner they speak up, the better.
And wouldn’t it just be ironic as all get-out if Exxon was able to solve this mess? Heck - I might even forgive its handling of the Valdez spill.
Topics: Business Ethics, Lauren Recommends, Social Ethics, corporate responsibility, customer relations, ethics |
June 7th, 2010 at 1:55 am
It’s a shame that people could only be stirred to fix this problem by a monetary incentive, but it’s still a great idea. It would be very nice if the government implemented something like that. At any rate, something clearly has to happen, and soon.