The oil spill off the coast of Rio de Janeiro
While Chevron was drilling an oil well off of the northeastern coast of Rio de Janeiro, a leak started spewing oil into the surrounding waters. Since it began on November 7th, is it estimated that 416,300 liters of crude oil has settled on the ocean floor. According to Carlos Minc, the incident was an “environmental crime” and “could have been avoided” (CBC News). Due to this, the government of Brazil has imposed a $28 million fine on Chevron.
This event is just one example of how companies can easily neglect ethics while making decisions. In this case, although Chevron knew about the spill right away, they hid information and did not act until ten days after the oil started spilling. Chevron did not uphold their responsibility as a company to care for nature, and this is probably due to the amount of financial pressure they were under at the time. Either way, it is still ethically wrong to conceal information about such a large detriment to the environment.
To prevent more occurrences like this, the Brazilian government will be using part of the reparations to increase the monitoring of the surrounding oceans. This will be crucial in the future because of the recent findings of offshore oil.
Article Source: Chevron faces $28M US fine, Brazil official says