Business Ethics Stories Prominent in World Press Reports

Sep 15th, 2008 • Posted in: News

Norway takes shares of mining company out of its national pension fund; ethical investments hammered in United Kingdom; Australians embrace ethical eating, even if it’s confusing

VARIOUS DATELINES
The concept of ethical buying, selling, and trading was featured in a variety of news reports last week. Among the top stories:

• Norway is banning its national pension fund from investing in the mining firm Rio Tinto because of environmental concerns. The BBC reports that Norway, which invests under ethics guidelines and has blacklisted other investments involving nuclear arms or presumed human rights abuses, is abandoning Rio Tinto because of claims that the company’s goldmine in Papua, Indonesia, is responsible for river pollution. Rio Tinto said it has an exemplary record in environmental matters, notes the BBC.
• Ethical investors have been hammered harder than most by the recent downturn in the stock market, according to an analysis from the popular U.K. investment site ThisIsMoney. New data show that the average ethical fund in the United Kingdom has fallen 9.1 percent in the past 12 months, compared with an average 5.7 percent drop for a fund not designed to meet environmental or social guidelines. The recent performance reverses course from statistics last year, when the average ethical fund outperformed standard investments by 3.3 percent, according to the ThisIsMoney report.
• Australians are growing increasingly concerned about ethical eating, according to a report last week. Sydney Morning Herald writer Paula Goodyer contends that shopping in the twenty-first century is full of ethical dilemmas: “We might have swapped plastic bags for calico, but the supermarket dilemmas keep on coming. We know our hearts and brains need omega-3 fats, but what about overfishing? If I’m buying canned legumes in the supermarket, do I opt for the organic product from Europe or do I save food miles by buying the non-organic Australian version? Is corked or screw top wine better for the planet? And then there’s the labels — you know what an organic chicken is, but what’s a chemical-free chicken? What’s the difference between pork that’s labeled ‘free range’ and one that’s ‘bred free range’?” Goodyer makes her observations in a review of a popular new book Down Under, Ethical Eating by Angela Crocombe, described as an Australian guide to shopping with the planet’s health in mind.

Sources: BBC, Sep. 11 — Sydney Morning Herald, Sep. 11 — ThisIsMoney.com, Sep. 11.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Sep. 8 — Related Newsline story, Aug. 25 — Related Newsline story, Aug. 11 — Related Newsline story, Nov. 26, 2007 — Related Newsline story, July 9, 2007.

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