Corporate activity can be bad for your health. From tobacco to pesticides, water pollution, factory releases of toxics and greenhouse gasses, corporate activity can directly affect public health. It can also effect those who work for those corporations, who may face hazards on the job consumers might never imagine: asbestos, mining collapses, failing eyesight and arthritic hands among sweatshop workers, exposure to radioactivity and more are often the unseen costs of the new global economy.
The Madras Aluminium Company Ltd. (MALCO) is part of Vedanta Resources, a London listed metals and mining major with Aluminium, Copper and Zinc operations in UK, India and Australia. MALCO is a primary Aluminium producer in South India with operations encompassing mining, refining, smelting and power generation.
One of the key companies in the family promoted Jindal Group, JSPL has grown from a moderately performing company in the steel sector to the largest sponge iron manufacturer in the world. Steered by Naveen Jindal, a Member of Parliament (2009), and one of four heirs to the business founded by his father, O.P. Jindal, JSPL realised a 2008 turnover in excess of $2 billion (Indian Rupee 100 billion. US $1 = Rs.
The Stericycle headquarters are located in Lake Forest, IL. Stericycle processes and disposes of medical waste.
Braskem S.A. is the largest Brazilian petrochemical company with head office in São Paulo. The company was formed in 2002 as part of a major restructuring of the Brazilian petrochemical industry which saw Copene merge with petrochemical companies controlled by Odebrecht, a heavy engineering and construcution company owned by the Odebrecht family, and another family-owned conglomerate, the Mariani Group.
Braskem operates 13 chemical plants with a production capacity of 5 million tons per year of chemical and petrochemical products.
Sappi Ltd., a global player in the pulp and paper industry, is headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa. Sappi Ltd is comprised of two divisions: Sappi Fine Paper (domiciled in London), and Sappi Forest Products (domiciled in Johannesburg), and employs some 16,000 people in Southern Africa, North America, and Europe; it bills itself as "the world's leading producer of coated fine paper and chemical cellulose" on its corporate website.
One of the world’s largest insurance and financial management companies, AXA offers life and casualty insurance, personal and commercial property insurance, financial services, and asset management. With major markets in the UK, Ireland, U.S., Asia-Pacific, Germany, Japan, Australia and Belgium. The 2009 Fortune Global 500 ranked AXA the 15th largest company in the world based on revenue.
AXA is the holding company of the AXA Group, which operates through five business segments: Life & Savings, Property & Casualty, International Insurance, Asset Management and Banking.
Pfizer is the largest and richest pharmaceutical enterprise in the world. Fortune® named Pfizer as the fifth-best ‘wealth-creator’ in America. The company is a global leader in human pharmaceuticals, and also has a large array of consumer health care, confectionery, and animal health care products. In 2000, its revenues equaled $29.6 billion (£20,14bn), eight of Pfizer’s pharmaceutical products attained sales of at least $1 billion (£680.4 million) each.
GlaxoSmithKline plc is a British based pharmaceutical, biological, and healthcare company. GSK is a research-based company with a wide portfolio of pharmaceutical products covering anti-infectives, central nervous system (CNS), respiratory, gastro-intestinal/metabolic, oncology, and vaccines products. It also has a Consumer Healthcare operation comprising leading oral healthcare products, nutritional drinks, and over the counter (OTC) medicines.
Roche is a healthcare company that does diagnostics, pharmaceuticals and research and development. It is arranged in two operative divisions; pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. The headquarters are in Basel and the company has many sites around the world - including: Nutley, Palo Alto, Pleasanton, Branchburg, Indianapolis, Florence in the US, Welwyn Garden City in the UK, Mannheim, Penzberg in Germany, and Shanghai in China.
The Hospital Corporation of America (HCA, formerly Columbia/HCA) is the largest for-profit hospital chain in the United States, owning some 169 hospitals and 100 freestanding (ambulatory) surgery centers in 20 states and six hospitals in the UK. In 2006 a group of investors took the company private in a $30 billion leveraged buyout, at the time the largest in U.S. history.
