In exploring unethical companies with many implications, Nestlé comes to the forefront of my mind. Being the world’s largest food and drink corporation, you would think that they would bring a higher quality of standard to their company. Let’s take a look into why they are considered the worst. Nestle is popular for their baby food, waterand chocolate brands that they serve to the public. They service more than 190 countries in the world with their products. They have the capability to reach many people with the services they provide to customers, but always at a cost. The way they go about attaining their products is unethical to those around them due to the way they handle business practices. By servicing those who need bottled water, Nestle legally but unethically decided to pump over 200 gallons of water from the people in Flint, Michigan from their fresh water sources, taking away from the water that the citizens of Flint so desperately needed. Flint, Michigan was going through a water crisis with not having clean and fresh water for use, due to corrupted pipes that Michigan politicians decided to divert from the Detroit river, because it was a cheaper option than just replacing corrupted pipes. Nestle decided to take advantage from this situation by taking from the poor to pad their pockets, creating a sellable product in the time of a crisis. They only pay $200 a year to pump water from the Detroit water sources for the over 200 gallons. During the crisis, over 12 people have died and over 90 people including children have gotten sick from the tainted water. Instead of donating water or resources to the state, Nestle made no attempt to rectify for taking sustainable water from those who really needed it. After this debacle, a lot of consumers started to boycott Nestle and their products due to this situation. Even worse, they sold this taken water to third world countries to those that needed water the most for ridiculous prices. In conjunction with not having clean water to drink, Nestle also owned the main suppliers of baby formula, but without having clean drinking water in third world countries because the price of water was too high, they were also responsible for the genocide of many children due to little to no nutrition in their formulas and also being made with tainted and polluted water. They influenced those in other countries that breastfeeding was to be stopped at 6 months due to anemia concerns, but those who do not know that this information was false would break down and give their babies the formula. Mixing it with the polluted water, which of course causes them to get sick and some eventually die. Drinking Water isn’t even considered a right as Nestle has came to the Worlds water council and asked them to change drinking water to a need rather than a right. Now they can profit even more off of the needs of those that need to drink water, which was everyone, especially those that can’t afford it. These Unethical practices just cannot continue.
ZME Science
The Nestle corporation is also no stranger to human trafficking and violating child labor laws. They have forcibly kidnapped children to work on their cocoa fields along with other stolen children. Many lawsuits ensued over the violation of international laws and Nestle felt like they shouldn’t have to be liable for those laws as they pertain to them. In 2010, the US courts decided that they did not have to be held accountable but has since been overturned. Nestle has never been on the hook and taken responsibility for the mistreatment or deaths of the trafficked children. Knowingly aware of all the laws around child labor and human trafficking, Nestle did nothing to stop it. Unethical practices toward children is just as low as you can get. All of these legal implications against them have made it even harder for the courts to agree with what is right and what is wrong. I’m starting to look at the courts in a light of being unethical themselves with the things that they allow these major corporations to get away with. Their are so many things wrong with this company that consumer engagement has been drastically cut in half for consumer use. Trust needs to be a main factor with such a large company such as Nestle. They own too many other subsides that rely on the other to survive.
Nestle is a money hungry company, but could have used their platform to donate so much more for their cause. While drinking water is now considered a need rather than a right, the decided to go the route of taking instead of giving and were also at the front of that fight to make it a need. The Internal stakeholders of this company were the ones to enforce these ludicrous decisions. They need a complete overhaul of the company to ensure positive feedback for consumer engagement. To this day, there are many countries are still boycotting Nestle products, even being in regulations with the proper organizations. Nestle attempts to thwart all negative comments about them by donating water to areas that need more than just a few bottles of water thrown at them. Nestle needs to be on the hook for the damage that they have caused worldwide. The structure of this company needs restructured to focus on the needs of the people, but they are too busy hunting for a dollar to snatch away from the poor.
O’Callaghan, K. (n.d.). Nestle: The world’s most corrupt corporation. Retrieved December 13, 2020, from https://skierscribbler.com/7671/opinion/nestle-the-worlds-most-corrupt-corporation/
Why Nestle is one of the most hated companies in the world. (2020, January 28). Retrieved December 13, 2020, from https://www.zmescience.com/science/nestle-company-pollution-children/
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