Should All Large Companies have “Ethics Officers?”

The focus below on the fact that regulations today often fail to keep up with important ethical issues is interesting. What other reasons can we think of for why a major company today might decide to assign responsibility for ethics to a single, senior officer of the corporation? Is there any reason not to?

>>>

LINK: Ethics officers in all large companies? (via Newsroom (New Zealand)

Emmanuel Lulin, Senior Vice-President and Chief Ethics Officer at global cosmetics giant L’Oréal, predicts we will soon be seeing ethics officers in most large companies.

Where once companies and other organisations could rely on the law for ethical guidance, nowadays the rapid speed of scientific and technical innovation is far outstripping the law’s ability to keep up, Lulin told a public presentation co-hosted by Professor Karin Lasthuizen, Brian Picot Chair in Ethical Leadership at Victoria University of Wellington, and Transparency International New Zealand.

Traditionally, he said, there would be a framework for such things as liability and how far you can go with an innovation.

But now, from artificial intelligence to cryptocurrencies, Lulin “could make a list for half an hour of the subjects where the law is absent or too late”.

This is unfortunate, he said, “but we cannot ignore it”….

What do you think?

Brought to you by: