Kardell Paper Company Ethics Case
Background
The Kardell paper mill was established at the turn of the century on the Cherokee River in southeastern Ontario by the Kardell family. By 1985, the Kardell Paper Co. had outgrown its original mill and had encompassed several facilities in different locations, generating total revenues of $1.7 billion per year. The original mill continued to function and was the firm’s largest profit center. The Kardell family no longer owned shares in the firm, which had become a publicly traded company whose shares were widely held.
Kardell Paper Co. was a firm with a record of reporting good profits and had a policy of paying generous bonuses to the chief executive officer and other senior executives.
Kardell’s original mill was located near Riverside, a community of 22,000. Riverside was largely dependent on the mill, which employed 500 people. The plant, while somewhat outdated, was still reasonably efficient and profitable. It was not designed with environmental protection in mind, and the waste water that discharged into the Cherokee River was screened only to remove the level of contaminants required by provincial regulation. There were other industrial plants upstream from the Kardell plant. The residential community of Riverside, five miles downstream from the plant, was home to many of the Kardell plant’s management, including Jack Green, a young engineer with two children, ages one and four. Jack, who was assistant production manager at the
Kardell plant, was sensitive to environmental issues and made a point of keeping up on the latest paper mill technology. Jack monitored activity at the plant’s laboratory, which in 1985 employed a summer student to conduct tests on water quality in the Cherokee
River immediately downstream from the plant. These tests were taken across the entire width of the river. The tests conducted nearest the plant’s discharge pipe showed high readings of an industrial chemical called sonox. Farther away from the plant, and
The Kardell paper mill was established at the turn of the century on the Cherokee River in southeastern Ontario by the Kardell family. By 1985, the Kardell Paper Co. had outgrown its original mill and had encompassed several facilities in different locations, generating total revenues of $1.7 billion per year. The original mill continued to function and was the firm’s largest profit center. The Kardell family no longer owned shares in the firm, which had become a publicly traded company whose shares were widely held.
Kardell Paper Co. was a firm with a record of reporting good profits and had a policy of paying generous bonuses to the chief executive officer and other senior executives.
Kardell’s original mill was located near Riverside, a community of 22,000. Riverside was largely dependent on the mill, which employed 500 people. The plant, while somewhat outdated, was still reasonably efficient and profitable. It was not designed with environmental protection in mind, and the waste water that discharged into the Cherokee River was screened only to remove the level of contaminants required by provincial regulation. There were other industrial plants upstream from the Kardell plant. The residential community of Riverside, five miles downstream from the plant, was home to many of the Kardell plant’s management, including Jack Green, a young engineer with two children, ages one and four. Jack, who was assistant production manager at the
Kardell plant, was sensitive to environmental issues and made a point of keeping up on the latest paper mill technology. Jack monitored activity at the plant’s laboratory, which in 1985 employed a summer student to conduct tests on water quality in the Cherokee
River immediately downstream from the plant. These tests were taken across the entire width of the river. The tests conducted nearest the plant’s discharge pipe showed high readings of an industrial chemical called sonox. Farther away from the plant, and