Colin McKnight
It seems like, almost every year, Wells Fargo makes the news for some controversial reason. This year, it was manipulating key data on customer’s account information. In 2016, it was discovered that many employees at the banking company had created more than 2 million fake client accounts in order to reach quotas, with an additional 1.4 million fake accounts being discovered a year later.
Despite its seemingly ever-growing list of scandals, including accused breaches of the Americans with Disabilities Act and discrimination against minority groups, Wells Fargo is still one of the biggest banks in the United States. Forbes lists it as one of a small group of banks that hold more than 40 percent of all the country’s deposits. The fact that the company seems to receive nothing more than glorified slaps on the wrist is frustrating.
At NC State, we expect every institution on campus to abide by a basic sense of decency, from lecturers in the classroom to the restaurant staff in Talley. Anything less, and we feel uncomfortable about devoting time and money to them. Off campus, we should hold massive industries to the same standards, no matter how difficult that may be.
We might think that because of social media and more widespread journalism, companies’ shady actions would more visible to the public eye. While in some cases — such as Geekbench’s benchmark data analysis in 2018 suggesting that Apple has been throttling speeds on older-model devices — the hard truth is that there are still plenty of activities the public has no clue about.
Still, some organizations are devoted to examining corporate behavior. B Corp Certification is one of the best measures of a specific company’s ethical behavior and its ability to give the world more than just a product.
Jessica Thomas, lecturer in the Poole College of Management and director of the Business Sustainability Collaborative, cited apparel manufacturer Patagonia as a key example of this kind of responsible and transparent behavior. Thomas said, “That’s a company that has really invested heavily in being a socially, ethically and environmentally responsible business.”
Doing business with the ethical trendsetters of the world makes an impact, even if it’s just a couple bucks for a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, or a small investment in a project on KickStarter, both B Corp Certified organizations. It’s impossible to know everything that goes on behind closed doors at your most trusted company, but putting your foot down when a scandal hits the news is one of the best ways to tell a company what you think of their actions.
It can take some research and sacrifice to limit your shopping to organizations whose values you agree with, as they may not be as common as you think. “Environmentally-friendly” products are probably the most infamously rare selection on the market. Despite my professed environmentalism, the truth is I’ve done a poor job of researching companies that I agree with besides the generic “BP ruined the Gulf” battle cries and other clichés.
As hard as this is, we shouldn’t be lax on forcing producers and service providers to be accountable. Even if all or most of the business world’s good deeds are just solid PR, basing our consumption habits off of business activities still sends CEOs and other executives a message: this generation doesn’t want to have anything to do with unethical business practices, and refuses to financially support that behavior.
A lot of a shady companies’ behaviors can be attributed to trying to survive and thrive in today’s globalized, dog-eat-dog corporate world. But companies like the B Corps would argue that such behavior isn’t necessary, and it’s up to us as consumers to support that argument.