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There’s a little bit where the CEO of Union Carbide claims to be doing the “moral” not just strictly legal amount of help in the aftermath of Bhopal, given the Indian government’s ownership stake in the plant. 

Mostly responsibility is seen as a performance by the Green Consultants - because no matter how “good” you are you still get attacked by activists and the laws are too hard to follow and are designed to trip you up. So responsibility also becomes a pre-emptive offensive strategy - And Green Consultants try to get people within the corporation to see the political, financial investment, PR, etc. benefits that come with this performance of green. It’s necessary to perform “Transparency” [though it wasn’t called that yet, perhaps]- the house analogy. Like the case of ARCO - the somewhat green-er gas is celebrated and rakes in profits and maintains a car-based status-quo; and the explosions are not mentioned.

Taking over the definition of “sustainable development” and making this concept rational, ensuring that economic growth is no longer in opposition to environmental protection - “leading” by being a driver at a UN conference - work done by the “beyond blame” rhetorical trick of [weaponizing inclusion] - self-imposed audits, monitoring, and management tools which are then loudly communicated about, in addition to the participation in institutions that give outside credibility

Denial → {Bhopal} →  stewardship → Disavowal

Disavowal is a way out for corporations who can no longer deny - they just aggressively ignore and separate, making it possible to still shout about their “goodness” and avoid taking responsibility for their risk. The scientist-President is doing her job as a scientist but positioned structurally within the hotbed of corporate manufacturers - how does this constrain her thinking and acting?

After it’s clear an “it can’t happen here” approach won’t work, Green Consulting and Enviro-comms and harmonization of oppositions come into play- corporations listening to the different “customer-publics” and finding a way to meet what’s being asked for but on the corporation’s terms. Coming to the table to negotiate but never take demands. Pushing on their own definitions of these terms, especially sustainable development, and co-opting the movement so that environmentalism becomes corporate.

Ad campaigns - 360*, from big-name companies like O&M. Getting involved in the scientific community that is meant to be working against them to regulate and mitigate the risk they propose to society.

Not really portrayed in that way here. The scientists are portrayed as genuinely caring about society, but being humble about what their data can and cannot say and why, and it seems they see themselves as part of the society.

In the first phase it seems it was just being modern, perhaps productive. They deny there is any risk to be responsible for. The middle is about the self-managing of risks they can no longer deny exist. The final one has disavowed responsibility but position themselves as essential for life as we know it, so we don’t focus on the ethics.

The self-governance in the stewardship phase immediately after Bhopal was positioning as authority to manage their own risk to society and environment. And the ad for India had a hint of this - the plant having the authority to usher in a particular kind of modernity back in the 50s and 60s. To the extent that the corporate position of the Exposure Science org’s president counts as CSR, they are also working to define exposure and connect it with legislation.