Coca-Cola is a multinational beverage company operating in more all the world countries except North Korea and Cuba. Despite being such a large and respectable company, Coca-Cola has frequently indulged in unethical conduct. For instance, the main ethical issue facing the company is an inability to ensure environmental protection. Over the years, various environmental bodies have raised their environmental policy concerns (Center for Ethical Organizations Cultures, 2020). Only through a change in the current policy can the company attain an excellent ethical status in the international community. In India, for instance, Coca-Cola is hugely to blame for the unbearable human condition. Located in Jaipur city, Coca-Cola's Kala Dera plant has disrupted human activities, including agriculture, fishing, and accessibility to clean water. With poor handling or river water and excessive water consumption, the company has made residents in the region lack adequate water to support their livelihoods. Apart from India's state, its products are stored in plastics bottles, which prove difficult to manage. In essence, the company's environmental policy does not function effectively, hence the rising environmental concerns towards the company.
In solving this ethical issue, I propose that the company implement a new environmental policy. I suggest a policy of total overhaul of managements that cannot sustain environmentally-conducive companies. With branches in every region and country, Coca-Cola can take a strong stand towards achieving a complete change to their environmental policy. In this new policy, regions that fail to comply with the set environmental standards must face the company's punishment, with the management of such regions being overhauled. In achieving this goal, all the branches must be informed of the decisions, thus requiring them to implement new practices for ensuring conformity to the existing environmental laws. For instance, if the Indian branch fails to meet the desired criteria, the whole top-management is sacked or transferred to other regions. Through this new policy, the affiliate branches will work the extra mile to ensure compliance with the laws. With severe consequences, it would be difficult for affiliate companies to disobey the existing laws. Additionally, implementing this policy will play a crucial role in making the company's head office produce of environmentally-sustainable bottles and products. While the affiliate branches could break the environmental policies due to plastic bottles from their head-office, being a role model in environmental conservation will help Coca-Cola's affiliates abide by the existing laws.
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There are three ethical decision-making models; consequentialist, non-consequentialist, and agent-centered models. The consequentialist approach focuses on explaining the impacts of an action, whereby individuals have to reflect on their actions and their effects on society (Brown University, 2020). The proposed policy follows the consequentialist approach, whereby it seeks to use its actions to present punishments. In this case, failure to abide by the laid environmental policies results in a severe punishment from the head office. The consequentialist approach could be an egoistic, common good, or utilitarian. In a utilitarian approach, individuals must reflect on their actions' good and evil, making a decision based on this judgment. Using this approach, the company's branches must reflect on their actions before implementing new technologies that threaten the environment. The egoistic approach is based on the argument of self-interest, whereby individuals make decisions that benefit them better (Brown University, 2020). This approach can also be used in explaining why Coca-Cola has to implement this new approach. In the spirit of self-interest, the company may choose between being punished by the US government and the international community and firing its employees for a better outcome. Eventually, sacking top-management would be the best decision based on the egoistic approach. It will save the company from being punished while also building a good reputation among the public.
The proposed corporate policy is socially responsible as it upholds Coca-Cola's bid to ensure environmental conservation and sustainability. By sacking any irresponsible managers, the company will ensure that the environment is conserved. For instance, in India's case, where the company's branch has led to the depletion of water sources during hot summers, the policy will ensure sustainable water use. In this branch, supporting environmental conservation will prevent further water sources, making the community around the company benefit instead of its existence. Another example proving the importance of this policy is its social responsibility is its ability to build sustainable systems. For instance, plastic bottles will be banned, thus conserving environments and protecting society from hazards caused by such destruction. With the littering of plastic bottles, animals across the globe suffer the consequences. However, with good bottling policies, recyclable bottles will be innovated, making the company socially responsible. Only through the elimination of the current threats to environmental threats can Coca-Cola achieve good social-responsibility status. Therefore, the status will be achieved through this consequential policy, which aims at sacking irresponsible management officers from the company's hierarchy.
Being a multinational organization, communicating this information to all the branches in a timely and effective manner would require a good strategy. The communication strategy that will prove effective in passing this information is through suitable communication modes between the branches and head office. In ensuring that all the branches get this information with the desired weight, the head-office should send emails to the affiliates before sending delegates to every affiliate to reinstate the new policy's importance. Through this strategy, the company will be particular in that all the employees understand its stand. Using single communication modes like emails could be ineffective as some affiliates could argue that they did not receive the message. However, with both delegates and emails, getting the message and receiving it with the desired weight will be attained. Failure to show urgency and importance of this message will prove difficult to the head office, as the affiliates would be slow to act on the new policy. Pushing change agendas through the use of delegations will make the affiliates more urgent and effective in implementing the changes.
Various limitations could be experienced in the policy and strategies while monitoring compliance. For instance, sacking contractual employees could be difficult for the company. Some employees cannot be quickly sacked with contract clauses, even after violating the company's policies. However, this limitation will be overcome by including a new contract clause, which holds the management of the affiliate companies responsible for environmental pollution within their jurisdiction. Compliance with this policy could also be challenging to monitor, as there are instances of fake environmental data and customer reviews. However, with the right follow-up being conducted, it would be difficult for the affiliates to corrupt reviews or manipulate environmental data. Another critical limitation of this policy is the challenge of hiring a new team to replace the sacked employees. The policies proposal for a complete overhaul of the management could be challenging to manage as hiring new and experienced management could take time, making such affiliates register losses in their operations.
References
Brown University, (2020). A framework for making ethical decisions. https://www.brown.edu/academics/science-and-technology-studies/framework-making-ethical-decisions
Center for Ethical Organization Cultures, (2020). The Coca-Cola Company struggles with ethical issues. Auburn University. https://dev.harbert.auburn.edu/binaries/documents/center-for-ethical-organizational-cultures/cases/coca-cola.pdf
