Greenwashing

If the ultimate purpose of a company is to make profit, when faced with ethically enclined market forces will the compay choose to enact the more expensive ethical behaviour or choose to show it has? Below we list a few examples of companies that choose the latter.

1. Volkswagen

In the early 2000's, the Volkswagen corporation, was confronted with a dilemma. Market forces were changing, consumers and governments increasingly worried about the ecological crisis demanded that all car manufacturers meet specific emissions targets. Volkswagen did a cost analysis that found that redesigning their cars to be more efficient would be extremely expensive. So Volkswagen instead of reducing the negative externalities of their product decided to fit 11 million vehicles with a “defect” device. This device included software that could detect when it was undergoing an emissions test and altering the performance to reduce the emissions level.

While this was going on, the company's public marketing efforts highlighted the low emissions and eco-friendly attributes of their automobiles. Actually, the nitrogen oxide emissions from these engines were up to 40 times the legal limit.

Why enact change when you can lie?

If you are human, the question above might seem dubious. However, corporations which in law have the same rights as humans. at their heart are profit driven machines. This gives them and the people that work for them (via fiduciary duty) the behavioural characteristics of a machine, unfeeling, unremorseful.