Waoh! I´m definitly in the wrong industri! Clearly there´s much more money to be made in the energy business than in communications. This week american oil giant ExxonMobil presented it´s financial report from third quater of 2006. I imagine the members of the executive board were quite pleased with themselves, as the surplus reached a staggering 10,49 BILLION us dollars.
This means that in july, august and september, Exxon made 114 mio dollars. A day. That comes down to 4.75 mio an hour, 79.166 a minute or 1319 dollars every second, 24/7!
It´s an insane amount of money!
This makes me wonder: how do a large global corporation deal with the minor issue of social responsibility? Maybe it´s just me, but I don´t get the impression that the american oil industry is reknown for its contribution to the world´s sustainability - you know, with the fossile fuels, polution and all that other stuff, the lefties are going on and on about.
Nevertheless, companies like Exxon are making billions every year. Is this an example of a company legitamizing itself only by making profit?
Of course ExxonMobil is putting a lot of money into reseach on new energy technologies that can insure their position in the market when there is no more oil and gas to be extracted. In my opinion, this company is only driven by the need for profit. 20 years ago that wouldn´t have been a problem, but these days the privileged consumer is looking for more in a company. We want the large corporation to behave decently. We demand organic milk, non-gmo corn, and renewable energy sources.
But as the Exxon-case shows, companies can make a lot of money without marketing themselves as social responsible.
I don´t have a problem with Exxon making a lot of money. I just hope, that a large part of the 10 billion USD, that Exxon made in the third quarter of 2006 will be spend responsibly.