edge, many adults choose to smoke. If she had consulted our website
(or that of our parent company, British American Tobacco), Wensley would have learned that harm reduction is at the heart of our business strategy. Imperial Tobacco and BAT have in- vested billions of dollars for decades in R&D to better understand the harm caused by tobacco use and to develop potentially less-harmful products. In fact, our top priority continues to
be working toward reducing the risks associated with smoking and making available a range of less risky tobacco and nicotine-based alternatives. Not only is it the right thing to do, it also makes business sense. I have a broader view of ethical busi-
ness practices. Not only do Imperial Tobacco and BAT, in all markets they operate in, continue to work toward developing potentially less harmful al- ternatives to cigarettes, we offer clear risk information about our products, we market our products responsibly, we work with retailers to stop children from buying our products, we engage openly with regulators, we treat our employees fairly, we limit our impact on the environment and we fight the trafficking of illegal products. By any standard, Imperial Tobacco is not only lawful — we are ethical. Eric Thauvette, CFO Imperial Tobacco Canada MONTREAL
More ethics
RE: “TEACHING ETHICS” ( January/ February). I remembered one of my uni- versity courses having a component that addressed business ethics and recalled that it got down to a rather simple guiding principle — do no harm. The concept seemed straightforward enough. Surely not doing any harm would be agreeable to any reasonable person. So we can do pretty much
Tweets Anne Papmehl @AnnePapmehl Interesting article on CPA website: A head for numbers?
https://shar.es/16Zoms
Adom Postma @AdomPostma Who would have thought that a reference to John Calvin would show up in an accounting magazine...
https://www.cpacanada.ca/en/connecting-and-news/cpa-magazine/ articles/2015/December/A-head-for-numbers … @CPAcanada
Eric Pye @ABCareerCoach Great article, and not just for accountants! #brain research is fascinating. #psychology #longreads #cpa_ab RT @CPAcanada Weekend long read: is there such a thing as an accounting brain?
http://ow.ly/VhKux #CPAmagazine
Devon Lowe @devonlowe Best before 2017! The time to change from temporary to permanent insurance is NOW!
https://www.cpacanada.ca/en/connecting-and-news/cpa-magazine/articles/2015/ December/Best-before-2017 …
Matthew J. May @MatthewJMayCA Great article and something we should be thinking about while we have time to plan.
https://lnkd.in/ePEgGhE
anything so long as we do not hurt anyone or anything. We can even do nothing if we so choose. And we must of course conduct ourselves within the limits and requirements of the law. (Some may even argue that businesses have a social responsibility. I feel that social responsibilities placed upon busi- nesses are already encapsulated within our laws.) Is the concept of do no harm good enough? Consider this example. A man falls into a ditch, is injured and unable to help himself. As a passerby would it be ethical to do nothing? By doing nothing you would not have made the situation any worse, and thus not have caused any harm. It would not be nice, but ethical, at least according to this guiding principle. Compare this to the Christian principle of doing unto others as you would have done unto you. Not helping the injured man is now obviously unethical. These two principles can be com-
pared. The first is passive and unde- manding. The latter is active and
demanding. If you were to ask people which they prefer, which they believe our society should conform to, I think it would be the latter. It is one thing to say, “I would help the
injured man.” But is this being honest? Consider how you have behaved in past situations. Do you sell your old stuff or do you donate it to charity? When you vaca- tion in an underdeveloped country do you bring notebooks, pencils and erasers to give to a local school or do you just pack a book? These are personal exam- ples, but consider examples from your business. Businesses exist for whatever purpose the owners say, and almost always this is to make a profit. But does making a profit require us to limit our- selves to doing no harm or can we still do unto others as we would have done unto us? Can we find a way to live and work that is compliant with the preferred ethics while not compromising on the profit purpose of our businesses? Allan M. Pearson OWEN SOUND, ONT.
MARCH 2016 | CPA MAGAZINE | 5
Follow us on Twitter: @CPAcanada Mar 6
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