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When it comes to disaster prevention, hope is not a strategy
By Lauren | June 1, 2010
It was a heartbreak to learn that British Petroleum’s proposed “top kill” maneuver (where do they come up with these names?) failed to stop the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico from its exploded rig. BP has - finally - admitted that it won’t be able to cap the oil for a month or more, and is directing its primary efforts toward containing the growing spill. This horrific event is already the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, and Heaven only knows how much worse it’s going to get before it’s over.
While BP has finally been more candid about its current capabilities, the company hasn’t yet acknowledged its apparent failure to plan and provide for exactly this kind of disaster. BP’s executives might argue, based on past history, that no reasonable company would have planned for an oil spill this large because nothing like it has ever happened before. (Even the damage done to Alaska’s coast by the grounding of the Exxon Valdez is dwarfed by the potential damage this oil spill may do.) BP’s management might contend that it would have been wasteful to put aside the resources needed to clean up a spill of this magnitude and that its money was better spent addressing its more commonplace business requirements and returning handsome dividends to its shareholders.
Trouble is, the Deepwater Horizon spill really wasn’t unforeseeable, or at least its potential impact wasn’t. One needn’t be a fiction writer or environmentalist to understand that an uncontrolled leak from a rig in the Gulf could have devastating consequences for wildlife, fishing and tourism. The fact that no leak of this size ever happened before was no guarantee that it wouldn’t happen at some point. Right now, it seems that BP just crossed its corporate fingers and hoped that “the big one” wouldn’t happen to one of its rigs, but hope is not an effective way to manage risk. When the stakes are this high, thoughtful prevention is essential.
Topics: Business Ethics, Risk Management, corporate responsibility, ethics |
June 2nd, 2010 at 2:00 pm
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