Clumsy, Costly Apology isn't BP's only Faux Pas

BP just paid $50 million dollars on an advertising campaign to "salvage" their image. As a freelance writer, I well understand the point of corporate communications strategies and good PR. A company has every right to tell the world what they are all about and what they are doing, even what they stand for (unless of course they are flaunting outright lies); PR campaigns are part and parcel of our modern business world, like it or not.

And there are many enlightened corporate citizens out there who write genuinely well-intentioned CSR policies, and do the deeds to back up their words: donating generously to charity, sponsoring charitable events, and implementing greener, kinder initiatives within their organization. Many business leaders today know this is wise; either they have fully embraced the realization that sustainability issues are serious matters because we live in a world of finite resources, or they are keen to ensure that their company's image is untarnished in the court of public opinion. As morally dubious as the latter is, the peer pressure to "do good" in the corporate world could be keeping a lot of companies from "doing worse."

This has not been the case with BP. Moreover, BP's decision this past week to (finally) publicly apologize to the American people reveals only one true motive, and it's certainly not moral contrition. No, the only reason BP acts now to publicly apologize, and in such a lavish way I might add, is directly related to their plummeting stock value. Period. BP found itself bleeding money as fast as their well in the gulf is gushing oil. Financial loss is the only thing on BP's collective managerial mind right now.

While I am not at all impressed with how BP has handled its communications with the public and the media over the past 48 days, my real fury (contempt) for the company is reserved for their lack of preparedness and contingency planning. For a company like BP, with so much wealth and so many resources at its disposal, this sort of negligence is inexcusable and unforgivable. I would go so far as to label their attitude "aloof disdain." They are so big, so powerful, and so supported and backed by governments the world over, they simply know they can get away with murder. In the Gulf of Mexico, they have.

Before I decided to open my own small business, I worked for a large multinational bank. In the years leading up to the millennium, if you recall, the fear of a digital meltdown led to a "Y2K" contingency planning frenzy around the world. Motives aside, every business, every organization, every government and municipality on the planet was busily beavering away on their contingency/emergency plans.

As a member of the Y2K project management team, my job was to write the disaster recovery plan for my business unit. The goal was to leave as little as possible to chance, and if indeed the worst happened, there would be a plan in place to mitigate total disaster. To that end, we brainstormed multiple scenarios and solutions. I wrote scripts and steps for manual input, should it actually come to a system infrastructure failure. We reviewed, we did test runs, we made sure everyone knew what they would be doing, and then we archived it, in the event that…

In short, we were prepared.

Now, I realize that a disaster recovery plan for a financial institution is not quite the same as an engineering contingency plan for an offshore drilling rig. But the principal is essentially the same: addressing that horrible "what if." One thing you can't deny is that the stakes are significantly higher for offshore drilling, where human lives and entire ecosystems are at risk. Those factors alone should be reason enough for making absolutely certain that all possible consequences and outcomes have been envisioned and contingency measures in place to mitigate the damages if the unthinkable were to ever happen.

That a company the size and scope of BP has not engaged in appropriate emergency planning and preparedness is mind-boggling. Scientists and software at their disposal, BP could have been easily working on detailed disaster prevention and disaster recovery strategies. They should have been made to produce these strategies before being allowed to drill. Indeed, that is what environmental assessment agencies were created for, to ensure that companies who drill, mine, manufacture—whatever—are prepared, that they will do no harm to the environment. Of course, when the "watchers" are as equally corrupt and careless, then you have the BP oil spill tragedy of April 2010. Collusion is even murkier than the oil oozing into the Gulf.

Finger-pointing isn't going to clean up the mess though. Finger-pointing isn't going to bring back those eleven men who lost their lives. Finger-pointing isn't going to revive the thousands of oil-drenched birds already dead or rehabilitate the ones gasping for oxygen and still struggling to survive. Finger-pointing does nothing to save the marine life of the Gulf or repair the fragile wetlands and marshes, which may not be able to sustain life for decades to come.

For those of us who value our wild places and spaces and hold dear all forms of life, large and small—from dragonflies and frogs to herons and dolphins—the sense of despair and futility is overwhelming. If you are like me, you alternate between tears and fury. I see the oil-covered birds and I feel physically ill. The Gulf was their habitat too. But BP, clearly, doesn't give a damn about a bird's life. All that "green" sounding, eco-friendly marketing patter they've been spewing for the past decade is meaningless in the face of this horrific reality.

There is no ad campaign in the world that will make this right. Indeed, BP's disingenuous CEO is dead wrong. Instead of spending such astronomical sums now to save their image, they should have been investing in preparedness planning over the years.

For more details about BP's lack of preparedness, read this article from Newsweek.