The Brent Spar Incident Essay Example

the contents and claim of toxic material located on the Spar. The firm found no evidence of toxic material and that the oil content was only 150 tons (close to Shell’s estimate) compared to the Greenpeace estimate of 5,500 tons.

The damage to Shell’s image had already been done though, and to avoid further public outcry and anger, Shell decided to dismantle and recycle the Brent Spar onshore.According to Shell’s director of corporate affairs, John Wybrew, “Shell acknowledged that they had made a mistake in ignoring public concern about deep-water disposal, saying that any future decision to dispose of a disused offshore oil installation should not be based solely on scientific, economic and environmental considerations. Political and public considerations will take greater priority. ” A reason for this fiasco to take root would be the failure of Shell to consider the public stance on disposing the Brent Spar into the North Atlantic.

Greenpeace, of course, was the leading reason that this incident was brought to the attention of the world audience. Greenpeace decided to get involved because they objected to the sea disposal on a number of issues. One main point is that the deep sea disposal of the Brent Spar would create a precedent for the dumping of other contaminated structures into the ocean, undermining the current international agreements on ocean dumping. Another cause for the fiasco to take place was to protect the well-being of the environment. Greenpeace even went on to say that “the sinking would amount to an environmental catastrophe.

When words like catastrophe are used the general public tends to start paying more attention to the situation presented to them by

the media. When situations like this are put into the limelight, people start to take a stance, and more times than not, it is against the big corporation. Greenpeace was able to get the public on their side and caused Shell to buckle under the pressure of the boycotts, lost sales, and even physical attacks. The main reason for this fiasco to get started and hold footing would be credited to the Greenpeace activists and the media coverage surrounding them occupying the Brent Spar.Television editors even admitted that “they had been manipulated by the group over the coverage of Shell’s plans to dump the Brent Spar oil platform in the North Sea.

” With all this commotion surrounding the dumping of the Brent Spar, the question comes up about why there were no policies in place governing companies about the dumping of obsolete oil rigs and other ocean structures. It seems all to commonplace that it takes a financial or environmental disaster for policies to be enacted. For example the Enron and WorldCom failures, which soon after brought to law the Sarbanes-Oxley act.In respect to the dumping of the Brent Spar, Shell was given permission by the UK government for the offshore dumping.

Greenpeace contended that this undermined an already agreed upon international agreement against dumping into the ocean. With conflicting policies stating who has the authority to authorize or deny ocean dumping Shell went to the UK government to get permission for the dumping, which they granted. At that time the UK policy was to look at each case individually and decide if the dumping should be allowed, with no policy in place that

would outright deny all structures from being dumped.Since the ordeal with the Brent Spar, the UK government adopted a new policy in September 1997 that centered on “a general prohibition of dumping of offshore installations for all but those instances where there was absolutely no alternative. ” Although having the proper policies in place will help stop fiascoes like the Brent Spar incident from happening, I believe the main cause for this debacle was because of the Greenpeace activists bringing attention to the general public about their views on the dumping.

They eventually got the public to take their side on the issue causing Shell UK to be involved in a media relations nightmare. During this fiasco, and even to this day, most environmentalists agree that ocean dumping was the most environmentally conscious decision in respect to the Brent Spar. With new policies in place, it is still inevitable that issues regarding ocean dumping and other decisions pertaining to the environment will still arise in the future. Masood, Ehsan. “Expert panel to judge on deep sea disposal.

Nature 377 (1995): 670. See Note 1. See Note 1. Anonymous. "Greenpeace under fire on Brent Spar coverage" Nature 377 (1995): 6.

Kirk, Elizabeth A. , Warbrick, Colin, McGoldrick, Dominic. “OSPAR decision 98/3 and the dumping of offshore installations. ” The International and Comparative Law Quarterly 48.

2 (1999): 458-464. Anonymous. “Brent Spar outcry leaves Shell with L60m bill. ” Professional Engineering 12. 16 (1999): 9.

Masood, Ehsan. “Shell keeps its options open for disposing Brent Spar. ” Nature 376 (1995): 378.