E.ON AG

A. The main facts about the activities of the company.

E.ON is one of the world’s largest investor-owned power and gas companies. At facilities across Europe, Russia, and North America, more than 72,000 employees generated approx. EUR132 billion in sales in 2012. In addition, there are businesses in Brazil and Turkey we manage jointly with partners. E.ON’s diversified business consists of renewables, conventional and decentralized power generation, natural gas, energy trading, retail and distribution. They supply around 26 million customers with energy. With the broad energy mix they own almost 68 GW generation capacity and are one of the world’s leading renewables companies. E.ON has an ambitious objective: to make energy cleaner and better wherever they operate. With E.ON’s strategy cleaner & better energy they are transforming E.ON into a global provider of specialized energy solutions which will benefit our employees, customers, and investors alike.

B. The Ethical challenges this company is addressing.

E.ON wants to make a statement as energy company with their new strategy cleaner & better. They have been active in almost energy fields , but recently they closed some assets and sold some assets that did not comply to the new strategy. One of the requirements in this was how society was looking to certain business units, environmental pollution and energy consumption.
The latter two are basically towards the new electric car system they are developing with Audi AG in Germany to basically put aside the ‘old’ vehicles that use fuel. E.ON wants to promote this by (1) producing clean energy itself and (2) secondly the vehicle which is using the energy generates no harm to the environment. Which is basically much more ethical then those companies that want to produce electric cars by the use of ‘non-green’ energies, which harms the environment as well. Besides this they develop smart grids that have to help the society to use the energy as most effective and efficient, so we do not waste to much of it.
Furthermore E.ON arranges factory visits for stakeholders whom are interested how they operate in E.ON assets and starters within E.ON need to develop a project which is a benefit for society, e.g. they have to go to schools with young children and help them with getting aware of energies or even go to hospitals with incurable sick children and make them happy with a surprise.

C. What makes you believe this company is really ethical and why you trust it?

E.ON has ability in both of ethical dilemma solving and proactive in doing business and responding to the society.
In the paragraph above, we already mentioned that E.ON with its new strategy basically ensures that they meet their commitment to society, in a way that it not only a ‘green ‘ company but also touches and improves the communities in which they live and work.

D.The possible challenges facing the company in the future and how you think this company may improve.

The possible challenges this company may face in the future is the march of Oil companies (e.g. Shell, Exxon and BP) they produce as many barrels of oil possible per day, to sell it for a cheaper price than E.ON can do with its ‘green’ assets. This is or may become a big hurdle, as those companies can also decide to go in these ‘green’ markets but more likely is that they keep drilling in the oceans, deeper and deeper. E.ON can improve this by looking every day into new energy technologies and perhaps one day they will find a more cheaper and environmental friendly energy that can compete with the big oil producers.