The article in the url link below presents the conundrum facing oil firms that seek to extract oil from the tar sands in Canada, but have presented themselves as socially responsible (Issues: Brands, p153). With oil prices rising, extracting the oil from these tar sands becomes profitable. Canada’s oil reserves are second only to Saudi Arabia and the country’s friendly and stable business environment is rare in the oil industry:
“Lord Browne of Madingley, who was BP's chief executive until May, sold its remaining Canadian tar sands interests in 1999 and declared as recently as 2004 that there were "tons of opportunities" beyond the sector. But as oil prices hover around the $100-per-barrel mark, Lord Browne's successor, Tony Hayward, announced that BP has entered a joint venture with Husky Energy, … making BP one of the biggest players in tar sands extraction.”
It is clear, however, that the processes used to extract the oil are causing significant environmental damage:
“Producing crude oil from the tar sands -- a heavy mixture of bitumen, water, sand and clay -- … generates up to four times more carbon dioxide, the principal global warming gas, than conventional drilling. The booming oil sands industry will produce 100 million tonnes of CO2 … a year by 2012, ensuring that Canada will miss its emission targets under the Kyoto treaty, according to environmentalist activists. The oil rush is also scarring a wilderness landscape: millions of tonnes of plant life and top soil is scooped away in vast open-pit mines and millions of litres of water are diverted from rivers -- up to five barrels of water are needed to produce a single barrel of crude and the process requires huge amounts of natural gas. … it takes two tonnes of the raw sands to produce a single barrel of oil.”
There are also tales of water pollution and increased medical consequences for nearby populations. Where does responsibility lie here? Greenpeace’s claim that “in the era of climate change it should not be being developed at all” is too flippant. BP’s reply that “These are resources that would have been developed anyway” seems equally unsatisfactory. What is clear is that the economic opportunity is generating:
“… a £50bn "oil rush" as American, Chinese and European investors rush to profit from high oil prices. Despite production costs per barrel of up to £15, compared to £1 per barrel in Saudi Arabia, the Canadian province expects to be pumping five million barrels of crude a day by 2030.”
Surely, the Canadian government is responsible for generating and enforcing environmental legislation in Canada, although the politicians also seek the tax revenues and other benefits that come with a booming industry. Surely, the oil firms have a primary duty to remain in business and obey the law, but many of them also present a public image that implies a concern for the environment over and above merely ‘obeying the law.’
Take care
Dave
Bill Werther & David Chandler
Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility
© Sage Publications, 2006
http://www.sagepub.com/Werther
The Biggest Global Warming Crime in History
by Cahal Milmo,
The Independent
December 13th, 2007
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14858
