Responsible Commerce

Business responsibility is often known as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) or Corporate Responsibility (CR). The term responsible commerce means for companies to build a socially acceptable business, that not only conformed to shareholders wants but to that of society and the environment. Social responsibility is about being transparent so that the business has the trust of the community. It is about looking after all people who have an interest in the business managers, to employees, the community, government, it is all stakeholders (Unido.org, 2015).

One of the company who does not practice responsible business is BP plc, also referred to by its former name British Petroleum, is one of the world’s largest integrated energy companies, operating in all activities which are connected with the oil and gas industry, which include exploring and producing, refining, distributing and marketing these products to the world market. It is also heedful of the renewable sources of energy, for instance, wind and solar power (BP, 2015). BP has been directly involved in several major environmental and safety incidents.

The Deepwater Horizon, BP’s Drilling platform in the Gulf Mexico, had an explosion on April 20th, 2010, which caused the largest oil spill catastrophe in the petroleum industry history. Within days of the April 20, 2010 explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 people, underwater cameras revealed the BP pipe was leaking oil and gas on the ocean floor about 42 miles off the coast of Louisiana. 87 days later, an estimated 3.19 million barrels of oil had leaked into the Gulf (Smithsonian Ocean Portal, 2015).

Soon after the spill, reports emerged that BP was hiding key data needed for an investigation probe. BP was accused of trying to stop any other entity from investigating the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig, leased by