The Volkswagen Emissions Scandal - A Case Study on Unethical Business Practices

At the end of 2015, car manufacturing industry was rocked by the disclosure of an unethical practice used by Volkswagen, one of the most prominent actors within automotive industry. Following the research on environmental procedures conducted by the International Council of Clean Transporation (ICTT) and West Virginia University, representatives of the Volskswagen group (VW) have been forced to admit that they had deliberately installed some “defeat devices” aimed at reducing the amount of emissions registered during vehicle testing under laboratory conditions. Thus, on road vehicle tests revealed a 0.85 g km-1 level of NOx emissions for VW Jetta and VW Passat, exceeding over four times the maximum limit of 0.18 g km-1 stipulated by the European regulations. Taking into consideration the direct impact on health condition of the people living in the affected countries and the huge amount of costs associated whith the overflow of pollution form VW cars, the paper brings into focus some systems of ethical analysis provided by the literature - utilitarianism, the ethics of virtues, universalism and teleological theory – in order to demonstrate why this unethical business practice severely altered sustainability principles and should be eradicated in the future.