Maersk Group is Denmark’s largest company, making up more than 15 percent of the country’s GDP. The shipping firm employs more than 121,000 people worldwide, operates in 130 countries, generated $59 billion in revenue last year, maintains a fleet of 600, and announced at the end of 2013 that its full-year net profits would be $3.5 billion, up from the previous forecast of $3.3 billion. Maersk has also proudly declared itself a good corporate citizen, stressing a theme of “constant care” with a dedication “to promot[ing] the health and safety of our employees and others in the industry and in the world around us.” The company is a member of the United Nations Global Compact, which encourages companies to embrace a set of core values in the areas of human rights, labor standards, and the environment. Indeed, in many ways Maersk prides itself as the face of Denmark’s modern economy: diversified, humane, and enlightened.
Why then is the company, through its U.S. subsidiaries, aggressively fighting common-sense reforms that would help deliver desperately needed food assistance to millions of hungry people everywhere from Syria to South Sudan?
The above excerpt was originally published in Foreign Policy.
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