What are ethics in business world? According to Investopedia, they are implemented in order to ensure that a certain required level of trust exists between consumers and various forms of market participants with businesses. Acting in an ethical way is very important in our daily lives and also in business because it is the way of building trust between persons. However, it is not easy to keep it all the times, and in fact, many well-known companies have been issued due to their business ethics.
Monsanto Company, a “sustainable agriculture company”, is the world’s largest seed company specializing in genetic manipulations and organisms. This company has spent numerous time modifying crops and conserving world’s’ natural resources. Their seeds have increased the quantity and availability of crops, and helped in world food production and revenues. However, Monsanto got its start making herbicide that would get more attention from public, and it did. For their first roundup herbicide, they said it is safe to humans that they labeled it as ‘biodegradable’. This would later be known as dioxin, a toxic chemical. Monsanto also has manufactured plastics, rubber goods, fuel additives, artificial caffeine by using dozens of toxic chemicals in the same environments where most of the world’s crops and seeds are produced.
Not only harming people in this way, but they also threaten farmers, especially those who try to start their businesses. Monsanto is a huge company and they have authority to often control the price of agricultural products, and what they actually do is by making their products very cheap they let consumers to buy more of their products over other companies’. But really, is Monsanto a ‘sustainable agricultural company’? How can we really trust this company for studying GMOs?
Reference:
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/business-ethics.asp
http://www.monsanto.com/whoweare/Pages/default.aspx