Ketola Tarja

FROM 7 DWARFS TO 4 LOST BOYS:
10-year Follow-up Study of the Largest Oil Companies’
Environmental Policies

Dr. Ketola Tarja
Adjunct Professor in Environmental Management
Department of Management,
Turku School of Economics
Rehtoripellonkatu 3, 20500 Turku, Finland
E-Mail: tarja.ketola@utu.fi, tarja.ketola@tukkk.fi

Abstract
A decade ago the environmental policies of the Seven Sisters were dwarfish. None of them dared to use entrepreneurial environmental strategies or threatening environmental moves. This paper compares those findings to the current environmental policies of the Sisters.

Little has changed. Only the number of Sisters has decreased to four: BP(Amoco), ChevronTexaco, ExxonMobil and Shell. The goals of their environmental policies are still reactive or anticipatory, not entrepreneurial or creative. Their means to achieve these goals are still co-operative, not threatening. Hence their environmental policies have not kept up with their business environment, which has become discontinuous. The Four Sisters could with their organisational capabilities pull up their policies to match their business environment, but they have chosen to lag behind in order to prolong the fossil fuel age because oil and gas give them huge revenues and power.

The Four Sisters have become lost boys who follow the irresponsible Peter Pan to the horrible world of Neverland resulting from unsustainable economic growth. The Sisters could grow up by reconsidering their economic, social and ecological responsibilities in this world, and by switching over to sustainable renewables.

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