A company that spends a lot of time on environmentally-friendly producing is Chiquita. Chiquita is the largest producer and distributor of bananas. The multinational has a market share of about 40%. As you can read on www.chiquita.com, the company has four core values:
· Integrity
Which means that they communicate with an open attitude.
Which means that they communicate with an open attitude.
· Respect
Chiquita takes their responsibility for a better live of their employees. The
employees get a good work-life balance and they treat all the people the
same.
same.
· Opportunity
They believe that it is important to spend a lot of time on the development
and growth of their employees. Teamwork is a good solution to encourage
personal development.
personal development.
· Responsibility
They take their responsibility for the pollution of the earth and the places
where they work.
where they work.
I will discuss one of Chiquita’s four core values: ‘Responsibility’.
Chiquita has done a lot of effort for the environment, for example:
One of Chiquita’s farms has been made into a nature preserve. The farm has an area of hundred hectares, and it is used for tropical rainforest. Chiquita also has a Rainforest Alliance Certificate. Rainforest Alliance is an organisation that takes their responsibility for a durable agriculture. Chiquita has accommodated to meet the rigorous standards. The symbol of the Rainforest Alliance Certificate is the green frog on the left. As everybody knows, the rainforest is the largest forest in the world. It is responsible for the equilibrium of the environment. Millions of different animals and plants live and grow there. Deforestation is not good for the equilibrium, so Chiquita reforests and conserves the ground. They also built a water recycling system, so that they reuse water instead of wasting water. The banana multinational also takes their social responsibility. They give their staff a remuneration and benefits that are higher than the legal salary. They also give their employees schooling and medical care. Chiquita has made a big advance. In the beginning of the nineties, Chiquita had participated in the Better Banana Project. There were a lot of problems: deforestation, over-reliance on pesticides, poor working conditions and waste management. [1] Every banana that was not good enough to sell on the market, they dropped on a mountain. If there were one ton of bananas sold, there was two ton of waste produced.
But during the years, Chiquita has advanced and had made a lot of efforts to take their responsibility. In my opinion, it is good that they want to take responsibility for the environment and the community. But we have to be sure that it is not a ‘lie’ of the management of the company. It has to be controlled by extern controllers, because there are a lot of people who don’t believe these facts.
Lobke Callens, Group 5
[1]http://www.organicconsumers.org/Organic/chiquita.cfm
In my opinion Chiquita is not creating a false image, but its image is definitely a little bit misleading.
BeantwoordenVerwijderenLike a lot of organizations, Chiquita defines itself by using vague and empty terms like “respect” and “responsibility”. Words like that are thrown around too often in the business world, without imposing that concrete issues are being tackled.
My question is: whose job is it to make sure promises are kept and results are being achieved? Should it be the company itself who reports everything they did or should we as a consumer keep track of it ourselves?
Jules Branswyck – Group 5
If we talk about fair trade, we always mention the premium prices for the local producers. But fair trade isn’t just about that. I also think there are lots of other values companies should aspire. Lobke indicated companies should produce in an environmentally-friendly way, treat their employees well,… But I think it’s fairly easy to introduce your company as an organisation that respects dozens of values. It all sounds very promising, but it’s up to the companies to actually fulfil those promises.
BeantwoordenVerwijderenLots of multinationals say child labour is not done. But a few weeks later, we read about a multinational that does employ children. So it becomes apparent companies don’t put their values into practice.
Justine Bleuze – Group 5