Procter and Gamble portrays itself as a good guy and claims to "do the right thing". They also claim that they "will not drive results through illegal or unethical dealings". Unfortunately their actions don't match their widely publicized "Purpose, Values and Principles" (PVPs).
Time and time again P&G has violated its own PVPs; in most cases these violations get little or no media coverage. P&G then utilizes its massive advertising budget and marketing know-how to sell you on the superiority of their products while at the same time counteracting any negative responses incurred by their ethical violations. Case in point is their recent Thank You Mom promotion - a real tear jerker. Meanwhile, behind the scenes P&G continued to support the ultra right wing ALEC organization. They finally withdrew support from ALEC after being threatened with a boycott led by ColorofChange.org.
Based on prior behavior, we believe P&G will only do the right thing when forced to do so!
Do you believe P&G Does The Right Thing?
For many years P&G has lived in our communities and in our homes under the guise of being a model corporate citizen. Unfortunately, the model corporate citizen guise is just that, a guise. Over the years P&G has engaged in a significant number of unethical activities:
* publicly professing commitment to supplier diversity while privately doing the opposite
* pricing their products higher than comparable competitive products based on unsubstantiated claims of premium quality
* anti-union lobbying
* tax avoidance schemes
* trademark bullying
* fictitious celebrity interviews
* price fixing in the EU
* faked advertising photos
* chemical testing on small animals
* charges of insider trading by a company director
* arrogantly refusing to end its support of ALEC until threatened with a boycott
Tellingly, P&G has never appeared on the list of The World's Most Ethical Companies as selected annually by the highly regarded Ethisphere Institute (http://www.ethisphere.com/). All of P&G’s major competitors (Colgate, Kimberly Clark, and Kao) have been on the list at least once since its inception in 2007. Importantly, formerly bad acting Microsoft has recognized the value of ethical business conduct and is now on the most recent list of the World’s Most Ethical Companies.
Ethisphere believes that, “The World’s Most Ethical Companies are the ones that go above and beyond legal minimums, bring about innovative new ideas to expand the public well being, work on reducing their carbon footprint rather than contributing to green washing and won’t be found next to the words Billion Dollar Fine in newspaper headlines any time in the near future. These are the companies that stand out among the competition in their industry.”
P&G believes being loud equates with being ethical. By simply dropping $100 million into clever marketing and public relation schemes they give the impression that they have fulfilled their ethical commitments.
This is not the kind of company deserving of public trust. Tell Procter & Gamble to adhere to their public statement, “We do the Right Thing”. Tell P&G you are not satisfied with their ethical practices. Please go to [http://www.change.org/...], sign the IMstar petition and help IMstar Enterprises obtain Justice.