Why Australians Remains Skeptical About Corporate Ethics - A Self-Reinforcing Cycle

by Austin Tran

Bachelor of Commerce student Austin Tran is the winner of the 2025 Natoli Student Ethics Competition for an undergraduate student.

From the public's perspective, corporate ethics increasingly resembles a branding tool rather than a true moral backbone. Companies are believed to sideline ethical conduct unless it is forecasted to increase profit. This belief is reinforced by high-profile cases of greenwashing in Australia, where companies secretly engage in unethical practices while branding themselves as sustainable.

A recent and striking example is Active Super, a superannuation fund that claimed to exclude investment in fossil fuels and gambling. Yet in 2024, after being caught investing in sectors that they proudly claimed to avoid, Active Super became the third entity in Australia to face court over greenwashing.

Worse still, organisations caught out for ethical misconduct frequently continue to operate with minimal consequence. This raises a difficult but necessary question: Are SDG frameworks truly working? When firms can selectively align with sustainability goals and face few repercussions for ethical failings, public scepticism is not just understandable, it’s inevitable.

That scepticism feeds into a self-reinforcing cycle. If ethical initiatives are viewed as hollow, they fail to generate trust or reputational benefit for firms. Without evident benefits, there would be little incentives for companies to move beyond surface-level commitments. 

Worse, some businesses have begun to practice “greenhushing” to avoid public backlash and accusations of greenwashing. In trying to avoid scrutiny, these firms have decided to speak less about their progress, and intentionally underreport their sustainability efforts. Greenwashing, alongside the rising prevalence of greenhushing, is making it even harder for the public to distinguish between genuine and performative businesses. And so, the cycle of public distrust and corporate performativity continues.

Breaking this loop requires more than better frameworks, it demands stronger enforcement and transparency. Until then, Australians are likely to remain on the fence, not because they don’t care, but because they’ve seen this all before.

2025 Student Ethics Prize Details Announced

 

Net zero by 2050 for Qantas

by Natasha Wensley

 

In pursuit of United Nation SDG 12, Australian airline Qantas committed to net zero emissions by 2050. While their broader sustainable development plan has included notable US$200M investments in sustainable aviation fuels, the implementation of a carbon offset program, a fleet enhancement program, and improved waste reduction, sceptics continue to criticise the airline's role in the global climate crisis.  

 

The underlying understanding that companies exist to maximise shareholders wealth is the most damaging argument to companies claim of sustainable production. Research does exist to support the proposition that companies associated with claims of ESG have been experiencing disproportionate growth 1.7 percentage points above their competitors, perhaps incentivising investment in these programs. However, the Board of major ASX listed entities have proven slow to implement real change, often being called out for “greenwashing” with “vague and unqualified claims” supported by a “lack of substantiating information”. 

 

Such distrust is perpetuated by the media. Extensive media coverage of the dramatic $2.5million fine received by Coles in 2023 need not have involved every sustainable claiming company to have directly affected their public perception – if Coles’ claims to sustainable production cannot be trusted then why should that of any other company? As such, this ongoing media scrutiny continues to impact the public's trust in Qantas’ sustainable practices. Publications contained in both the AFR and Guardian encourage readers to question whether their sustainability programs, notably the third-party led carbon credit scheme, are being executed with sufficient due diligence. 

 

The ethical decision making frameworks and guidance provided by the Australian Institute of Company Directors may be comprehensive but the publication of these reports means little to the Australian people. The tension between the publications and the distrust they represent creates the neutrality around ethical practices that is represented in the Australian public today. 

More focus needed on corporation ethical decision-making

by Liwen Tang

 

Nowadays, concerns about sustainability issues increase rapidly and the Governance Institute of Australia intend to measure that how the public think about the national corporation ethical decision-making process. Surprisingly, the final results reveal a neutral view held by Australians, with the trend that financial institutions and private sectors continue to release the guidelines of ethical decision-making, such as the ethical decision-making frameworks in practice, published on February 1^st, 2024.

 

There are multiple reasons why the public is indifference about the ethical decision-making in companies. The first one to be consider is the collision between stakeholders benefits and the ethical issues. The primary goal of many corporations is profit maximization, which sometimes conflicts with ethical considerations. In pursuit of financial gains, companies may prioritize short-term profits over long-term sustainability or ethical practices.

 

Moreover, profitable corporations are more capable in dealing with ethical and other sustainability-related issues since they have more resources and have less pressure on making profit. If we consider big companies such as Woodside Energy who has a complete system about ESG issues and their stakeholders concern more about their strategies on ethical decisions. Therefore, stakeholders consider more about the profitability and then they will care about the ethical decisions.

 

Other reasons could be lack of advertising on those ethical frameworks and unquantifiable results. If few people know the frameworks, there must also be few attentions. Meanwhile, the measurement of ethical decision-making is a long-term and unquantifiable process and short-term investors wouldn’t put energy on this issues.

 

Addressing these challenges requires a multifaceted approach. Companies need to not only adopt ethical frameworks but also undergo a cultural shift towards prioritizing ethical values. They should cultivate a culture of transparency, accountability, and stakeholder engagement to bridge the gap between ethical rhetoric and practice.

Are corporations all talk when it comes to ethics, and how did this assumption affect the public’s view on their decision-making and practice?

by Yu Thai Ha Nguyen

 

In Australia, there is currently no mandatory sustainability reporting standard, enabling high-emitting corporations to breach corporate ethics. Therefore, they tend to engage in greenwashing by making false or misleading claims in sustainability reports. This makes them miss target 12.6 of SDG 12 and creates information asymmetries, which can only be reduced by reasonable assurance. However, there has yet to be a standardized framework for sustainability assurance engagements, and 83% of them are limited assurance, so they cannot help businesses mitigate asymmetries or enhance their credibility. Additionally, greenwashing integrates ethical discourse with unethical praxis, creating the impression that companies are neither ethical nor unethical.

Contrarily, low-carbon firms tend to engage in greenhushing by concealing their progress towards target 13.2.2 of SDG 13, restricting stakeholders’ access to sustainability reports. Thus, media agencies serve as intermediaries between stakeholders and organizations, allowing them to evaluate whether organizations comply with ethical requirements. Nevertheless, how information is presented on the media alters public perception of corporations. By omitting material information and conducting subjective assessments of companies’ decision-making, media agencies instill the sense that companies are unethical into stakeholders. Nonetheless, the media also helps businesses partly rebuild public trust and shift stakeholders’ perspectives on their ethical practices from negative to neutral by promoting their restorative actions.

Moreover, companies can talk the talk, but cannot walk the walk. Take Commonwealth Bank and Westpac as examples. Although its website stated that its employees received generous salary packages, Commonwealth Bank deliberately underpaid them for 6 years. Likewise, Westpac pursued an AML/CTF policy, but it seriously violated the AML/CTF Act and incurred the heaviest civil penalty in Australian history. Despite these facts, they are still ranked among Australia’s Top100 Graduate Employers in 2024. In conclusion, disparities between corporations’ incentives and policies make stakeholders adopt an unbiased viewpoint on their ethical conduct.

NAB’s greenwashing and ethical ‘Fee-nomenon’

Doctor of Philosphy (Business) student Veronica Schulz is the winner of the 2024 Natoli Student Ethics Competition for a postgraduate student.

 

In a world where corporate greenwashing has become all too common, the case of NAB stands as a glaring example of ethical hypocrisy. NAB proudly flaunts its supposed commitment to carbon neutrality while shamelessly burdening its customers with exorbitant account fees during cost-of-living crises. The blatant disregard for the financial well-being of everyday Australians epitomises the ethical bankruptcy that plagues the corporate world.

Their claim of carbon neutrality reeks of tokenism, a shallow attempt to appease stakeholders while conveniently ignoring the harm inflicted on Australians, such as charging clients for non-existent services. Such actions expose the hollowness of corporate ethics, rendering frameworks and guidance from organisations like the Australian Institute of Company Directors meaningless in the face of unchecked greed.

The fact that society remains ambivalent toward the ethical conduct of corporations speaks to the pervasive apathy that has permeated our collective consciousness. Australians have grown accustomed to corporate malfeasance, numbed by a relentless barrage of scandals and betrayals of trust.

Holding corporations accountable requires more than just righteous indignation; it demands concerted action to challenge the status quo and push for systemic change. It is incumbent upon consumers to vote with their wallets, to support businesses that align with their values and shun those that prioritise profit over people. Regulators must enact meaningful reforms that incentivise ethical behaviour and penalise those who flout their responsibilities to society.

The case of NAB serves as a reminder of the urgent need to redefine society’s expectations of corporate conduct. We cannot afford to remain passive bystanders in the face of corporate malpractice. Reclaiming our power as consumers, Australians must demand a future where ethics are not just a marketing ploy but a guiding principle of corporate governance. Only then can we truly build a more just and sustainable world for future generations.

The Trust Problem: Society and the Ethical Corporation

Bachelor of Advanced Computing and Bachelor of Commerce student James Dwyer is a joint winner of the 2024 Natoli Student Ethics Competition for an undergraduate student.

 

Since the 1990s, business schools across Australia and the world have attempted a significant shift in the way they deal with ethics education. Now, it has pervaded all aspects of the education sphere. Yet, despite the fact that today’s business leaders have grown up surrounded by talk of business ethics, and major business ethical scandals continue fill the headlines, research shows the Australian consumer doesn’t seem to care, seeing the corporate sector as neither bad or good. This begs the question, why the apathy?

 

When looking at an international scale, businesses have been attempting to increase their ethical profile for years to align with new standards, such as the UN sustainable development goals. While sustainable investment strategies have come and gone as a method to achieve ethical responsibility, one key overlooked principle is Goal 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth. Companies are traditionally given a degree of brevity to achieve this, and it is this perception, of the ethical responsibilities of a business competing with the need to successes that could account for such a neutral societal view.

 

PWC after it’s major scandal was able to still continue intact. Could it be the cutthroat perception of many industries leads people to view unethical behaviour as almost necessary for success in these industries? I contend, it is the culture in the corporate world that sets people’s perceptions of it, and therefore leads people, no matter how much work on company ethics, to view the corporate world as playing by the ”law of the jungle”.