Speaking out on environmental protection

The celebration of the Earth’s Day this week, coinciding with the first day of Spring in the northern hemisphere, provides an excellent opportunity to raise the question of whether business leaders should take an explicit public standing in support of the environmental protection measures enacted by UN, endorsed by many countries.

Expressing a public commitment to one’s values and principles is a practice generally demanded of politicians, philosophers, and academics, though it may not always be sincere or authentic. But while managers and entrepreneurs may hold opinions about pressing social issues such as inequality, immigration, sustainability or populism, expressing them in public has often resulted in undesired consequences. In the world of business, the more senior one’s position, the greater the risk of scrutiny and disagreement with all kinds of stakeholders.

For this reason, people in senior positions, such as CEOs and board members, have tended to be circumspect about what they say in public regarding moral or ethical questions and have been reluctant to join in public debates, preferring instead to focus exclusively on defending the interests of their shareholders and customers, to whom, in the final analysis, they are accountable. 

Another reason CEOs might choose to keep their thoughts to themselves is concern over the reaction from the authorities, particularly in state-regulated sectors. In some countries, falling foul of the government can lead to restrictions on business activities, fines and even expropriation.

Nevertheless, business leaders are increasingly finding themselves under pressure to clarify their position on issues their forebears were able to avoid addressing. Accountability and sustainability now means CEOs must take into account the views of a wider group of stakeholders, and indeed society in general, based on the size and impact of the business they represent. 

Social responsibility, sustainability and respect for the environment have come to be seen as an integral part of a company’s overall strategy, and how it communicates with society, giving CEOs a more active role in debates about the pressing issues of the day, which in some cases has contributed to bringing about change: the decision by many companies in the 1980s to boycott South Africa arguably hastened the end of apartheid. 

More recently, in Spain, in a move clearly intended to send a warning to the Catalan independence movement, most of the largest companies based in Catalonia moved their headquarters to Madrid and other cities in response to the regional government in Barcelona's illegal declaration of independence in 2017, a decision based on a tantalizing vision that was not supported by the majority of the electorate and other key stakeholders.

In 2017, former US President Donald Trump’s refusal to condemn white supremacists following violent clashes in Charlottesville prompted criticism from the CEOs of some large US corporations, with a number abandoning a White House business advisory council in protest.

Let me say now that I am not proposing that CEOs and managers should necessarily join in every social debate. Any decision to comment on the issues of the day should be made after weighing up the strategic impact and based on arguments that, broadly speaking, reflect the company’s outlook and philosophy.

Obviously, there are situations where basic democratic principles are under attack, requiring a robust response from business leaders. This leads us a proposal made by Elisabeth Anscombe, a British philosopher, who explained that there are principles and moral positions that are absolute and that have primacy over any other considerations. 

Anscombe’s fundamental argument focuses on the idea that there are principles and rules that are absolute and applicable to any situation, regardless of the outcome. This position tends to be called moral absolutism, a term that while it has a certain negative connotation, reflects the strength and stringency of moral principles under any circumstance, according to Anscombe. To illustrate this she uses the example of killing the innocent. “But if someone really thinks, in advance, that it is open to question whether such an action as procuring the judicial execution of the innocent should be quite excluded from consideration – I do not want to argue with him; he shows a corrupt mind.”

The urgency of addressing all major challenges to our common environment makes the protection of our planet an absolute moral principle, against which any other arguments may not prevail.