Uniform Linen Leasing Company expansion plans in Alabama manufacturing facility

Uniform & Linen

Before implementing anything with respect to environmental protections and regulations, Uniform & Linen needs to have a coherent, company-wide policy on the matter. Such a policy will help guide not only the decision at hand in Alabama, but any future such decisions as well. As Weaver, Trevino and Cochran (1999) note, corporate-wide ethics programs can allow the organization to define how it wants to approach ethics, and can allow for the organization to structure its response to ethical challenges any way it sees fit.

Thus, the first step is the creation of a company-wide ethics program or policy. It first needs to be understood that the issue is never black-and-white, specifically there is no choice between being ethical and being unethical. The company is guided by laws, and these are usually much closer to being black and white than any ethical dilemma. It is recommended that for guidance, Uniform & Linen adopts a stakeholder approach. The community and the environment are both stakeholders, and the shareholders of the company are as well. The community benefits from jobs, but the decision to choose jobs over pollution -- to the degree that this is a binary choice -- is one that should be made by the entire community, not just the local politicians or a handful of protestors. The company can contribute to this decision-making process by maximizing the benefits to the community and minimizing the costs. It is recommended therefore that a balanced stakeholder management approach is taken with respect to the ethical behavior of the company, reflecting basically a utilitarian viewpoint.

Minimizing Damages

The key issue at hand is the potential for pollution in the local river and environment. The linen industry creates pollution with its cleaning chemicals, and the proposed facility is going to be involved in the production of these chemicals. Should such chemicals be released into the environment, either deliberately or accidentally, the results could be catastrophic.

There are examples of this having occurred in the past. In 2008, Alabama Biodiesel Corp. faced a major lawsuit as the result of a chemical spill from its mulching plant. This spill released pollutants into the Black Warrior River, which is a major recreational area (Goodman, 2008). The local residents became concerned, because pollutants in this river affect the health of those who eat fish from the river, swim in it, or otherwise utilize the river for recreational opportunities. There are laws in place to prevent companies, including Uniform and Linen, from dumping hazardous chemicals into the environment. Thus, the issue at hand is the same issue that Alabama Biodiesel faced, where a spill or leak results in pollution.

For Alabama Biodiesel, the company was clearly negligent in that it allowed such pollution to be released, but that company was welcomed with open arms by the community because it was supposed to be clean. This may contribute to the climate of distrust faced by Uniform and Linen today. Producing chemical cleaners sounds significantly more threatening than producing biofuel, so if the latter had a negative outcome for the people of Alabama, then the production of the former is certainly a concern. For Uniform & Linen, any spill would also subject the company to a significant lawsuit that could erode the financial benefits of the tax breaks it expects to receive for locating in this area.

The processes used by Uniform and Linen to produce and use cleaners inevitably create chemical waste, in the form of either production process by-products or the form of used chemical cleaners. In the past, such wastes have often been discharged into the environment, something that was allowed as the result of weak legislation. For the most part, such direct discharges are not allowed by law. This is something that should be communicated clearly and unequivocally to the local community, although such communication is not expected to result in an end to the protests. For example, the facility will need to report all discharges to the Toxics Release Inventory as per EPA regulations. Making such information available to the public can help to deliver a high level of transparency about the plant's operations. This transparency will also create a climate within the company that compels managers to act ethically with regards to chemical discharge, knowing that transparency is a key component of the company's ethics program. Also knowing that the community is watching and will have the figures available to it will encourage behaviors on the part of plant management to minimize the environmental impact of the plant's operations.

Even relatively benign discharges of used cleaning solutions can create changes in the environment, such as increased alkalinity of soil and water. Such changes could mark changes on local flora and fauna. For Uniform and Linen, it is important to develop a policy that moves the company to a no-discharge system. Many industries are moving in this direction, whereby liquid wastes are eliminated from their processes entirely. This includes industries like brewing that utilize liquid chemical cleaners. The best practices in the industry appear to be oriented towards the use of organic cleaners that biodegrade in the environment, in such situations where environmental discharge is necessary.

Conclusion

The local community has a right to be wary of the environmental impacts of a plant that produces cleaning chemicals and uses them in testing. Alabama residents have faced chemical spills and destructive discharge many times in the past. The starting point for our approach to community relations in this instance has to be with a coherent company-wide policy that not only guides our actions but represents something that we can point to so that the community understands it can trust U&L and our track record.