The Following story is fictional, the names and dates have been invented and some of the facts

have
been collected from real stories and others invented

Dirty Business…
A Foreign steel factory in the Southern province of --------, Vietnam, is causing major controversy.

On March 2nd 2018 the very profitable Japanese owned factory was authorised to resume activity
after it had been closed by local authorities for three weeks. Local authorities had closed the factory
due to several protests caused by allegations of severe air and water pollution by local residents.

Following a thorough investigation by the environmental administration of the province, it was

concluded that minor water and air pollution had been released into the environment, but these
were compliant with national environmental laws and were under the authorised limits.

M. Sumimoto, CEO of the Steel Company, explained in press conference that the company is “very
concerned about local residents wellbeing and the environment, and always strives to adopt the
most environmentally-friendly processes and best practices”.

However, local residents and environmentalists have conducted their own investigation, and came
to the conclusion that very toxic chemicals had been release in the local river; and according to their
water testing results, toxic chemicals levels are 50 times higher than regional and international
authorised standards.

Environmentalists from 2 foreign NGOs have anonymously declared to online media sources that
over 2000 households were directly exposed to toxic air wastes and that many residents and farmers
downstream will also suffer from the consequences of intoxicated waterways. They also highlighted
that “more research needs to be produced to understand longer term impact of the toxic water on
agriculture and food production downstream”. Most farmers pump water directly from the river for
irrigation.

Large tax income generated by the factory and the 1600 jobs at stake was raised by local residents as
reasons for the local authorities to grant the permission to resume operations.

According to internal information, local management of the factory has received strong pressure
from shareholders to pursue activities, as relocating the factory and pausing operations for many
months would cause major losses for the company and would dangerously affect customer
relationships.

Several major customers in Europe and Japan have already expressed their concerns on the negative
externalities of their supplier, and have announced that they will take into account production
practices when selecting steel suppliers.

Experts from the steel industry have developed cleaner methods to produce steel, but today those
techniques require heavy investments from producers.