Ethics and Environmental Policy for a Chemical Plant Facility

Establishing a Company-Wide Ethics Policy

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 decisions as well. As Weaver, Trevino, and Cochran (1999) note, corporate-wide ethics programs allow an organization to define how it wants to approach ethics and to structure its response to ethical challenges in whatever way it sees fit.

The first step, therefore, is the creation of a company-wide ethics program or policy. It must be understood from the outset that the issue is never purely black and white — there is no simple choice between being ethical and being unethical. The company is guided by laws, which are generally much closer to binary than any ethical dilemma. For ongoing guidance, it is recommended that Uniform & Linen adopt a stakeholder approach. The community and the environment are both stakeholders, as are the company's shareholders. The community benefits from jobs, but the decision to prioritize jobs over pollution control — to the degree that this represents a binary choice — is one that should be made by the entire community, not just local politicians or a handful of protesters. The company can contribute to this decision-making process by maximizing benefits to the community and minimizing costs. A balanced stakeholder management approach to ethical behavior is therefore recommended, reflecting a broadly utilitarian viewpoint.

Minimizing Environmental Damages

The key issue at hand is the potential for pollution in the local river and surrounding environment. The linen industry creates pollution through its cleaning chemicals, and the proposed facility will 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 precedents for exactly this type of outcome. 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, a major recreational waterway (Goodman, 2008). Local residents were alarmed because pollutants in the river affect the health of those who eat fish from it, swim in it, or otherwise use it for recreation. Laws already exist to prevent companies, including Uniform & Linen, from dumping hazardous chemicals into the environment. The issue facing Uniform & Linen is therefore analogous to the Alabama Biodiesel situation, where a spill or leak results in environmental pollution.

In the Alabama Biodiesel case, the company was clearly negligent in allowing such pollution to be released, even though it had been welcomed with open arms by the community because it was expected to be a clean operation. This history may contribute to the climate of distrust that Uniform & Linen faces today. Producing chemical cleaners sounds considerably more threatening than producing biofuel, so if the latter produced a negative outcome for Alabama residents, the production of the former is understandably a concern. For Uniform & Linen, any spill would also expose the company to significant litigation that could erode the financial benefits of the tax incentives it expects to receive for locating in the area.

The processes used by Uniform & Linen to produce and use cleaners inevitably generate chemical waste, whether in the form of production by-products or spent cleaning solutions. In the past, such wastes were often discharged directly into the environment under weak legislation. For the most part, such direct discharges are no longer permitted by law. This must be communicated clearly and unequivocally to the local community, even if such communication is unlikely to end protests entirely. For example, the facility will be required to report all discharges to the Toxics Release Inventory in accordance with EPA regulations. Making this information publicly available can deliver a high level of transparency about plant operations. That transparency will also foster an internal culture that compels managers to act ethically regarding chemical discharge, knowing that public accountability is a core component of the company's ethics program. Awareness that the community has access to discharge figures will further motivate plant management to minimize the facility's environmental footprint.

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 must be a coherent, company-wide policy that not only guides our actions but also represents something tangible we can point to, so that the community understands it can trust Uniform & Linen and our track record.

The facility will be EPA-regulated, which means that management will track and report discharge data. This data will also be made public, creating the transparency that fosters trust and orients managers toward best practices. Those best practices include a move toward zero liquid discharge into the environment, and — where discharge remains necessary — a focus on organic compounds that degrade once released and are therefore less destructive. Finally, it is important that the company communicates its intentions clearly to the community. There may remain individual protesters who cannot be satisfied, but isolated objections cannot drive company policy. The approach must be reasonable with respect to expected outcomes, and once a majority of the community supports the project, it should proceed.

Works Cited

Goodman, B. (2008). Pollution is called a byproduct of a clean fuel. New York Times. Retrieved July 28, 2012, from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/11/us/11biofuel.html?pagewanted=all

Weaver, G., Trevino, L., & Cochran, P. (1999). Academy of Management Journal, 42(5), 539–552.