Corporate social responsibility

This word is plastered in many a corporate websites and annual reports.

however for the case power generation companies (gencos) and oil companies, what does this exactly mean?

many governments, including the mother of all governments (the US if you want to know) have recently hauled up chief execs of these companies to explain why is it that these companies are reaping huge profits, and at the same time consumers are suffering higher pump prices.

so for these comapnies, how much profit can they make before it is too much? Do these companies not have a right to make the profits? In many areas where they operate, there is a co-sharing with the local governments, so the local theoretical should benefit as well, but as in the case of malaysia, it has lead to a series of problems because the government have long subsidized the pricing of gas.

so now it becomes a cruel circle, the oil companies cannot be seen as making too much profits, so they will cut back on oil exploration projects, and only pump from old wells which would make recovery cost more expensive, thus while maintaining some certainty in the pump prices, it would shave off their profit margins. But in the long run, it would lead to even more expensive pump prices.

perhaps the challenge then is to make the consumers less reliant on fossil fuel, as al gore has advocated.


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