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Exxonmobil Climate Change Controversy

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It is 2017. In an era of globalisation with a worldwide population totalling over 7 billion, colossal multinational companies have become entrenched in prevailing society, with their daily operations impacting the lives of millions of people. This has made the role of ethics and ethical business practice crucial to the goals of sustainable development and the preservation of social order. The ExxonMobil climate change controversy will examine a case where complex ethical decisions were made, with the potential for staggering ramifications on a global scale. This case study highlights the vital importance of stringent adherence to business ethics by transitional businesses but also the ambiguity that comes with ethical interpretation.

ExxonMobil is a United States based transnational oil and gas corporation. Founded on the 30th of November 1999 after the merger between Exxon and Mobil, reuniting the original breakup of standard oil company (Folsom Jr 1998). It is the world’s largest publicly traded oil and gas company by market value and as of 2016, the sixth largest in terms of revenue at $246 million per year (Decarlo 2016) . ExxonMobil’s oil and gas exploration stretches across six continents with …show more content…

Firstly, Upstream; which consists of oil exploration, extraction, shipping, and large-scale operations. Secondly, Downstream; which involves marketing, refining, development of modern technologies and retail operations. And finally, Chemical operations which includes the production of substances such as polyethylene, the most common plastic and polypropylene used for a range of things including underwear and rope .

The global span of ExxonMobil makes the importance of ethical behaviour paramount; however, this has not always been the case. Investigations (Banerjee 2015 & Various 2015) have revealed that ExxonMobil discovered the link between human activity and climate change years before it became a public issue. Instead of adapting its business model

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