People have to come before profits, even in a crisis

The Fukushima Daiichi power plant disaster has become a textbook example of what not to do in an emergency.

After a gigantic earthquake and a devastating tsunami, Japan now has a nuclear crisis which is becoming a case study in bad crisis management. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster may overshadow the 1984 Union Carbide Bhopal chemical leak, the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill or last year’s BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as a textbook example of what not to do.

This is not just Japan’s problem. A cloud now hangs over the future of nuclear power throughout the “Pacific Ring of Fire” earthquake zone as locals stage traditional and online protests against nuclear energy.

A few organizations will need to adopt new ways of operating after this situation is brought under control. The regulatory authority responsible for nuclear power plants in Japan needs to reassess how to build plants in an earthquake zone. (It appears that the design and location of the Fukushima Daiichi plant was just plain wrong).

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), which runs the plant, and the Japanese government need to change the way they release critical information in a crisis. (The New York Times has documented the failure of communications.) The flow of information has been slow and vague. In the West we’d describe it as stonewalling. Possibly for the first time in Japanese history, people started seriously questioning those in positions of authority. They felt they had a right to get accurate and truthful updates in a timely manner and that it was not forthcoming.

Japanese authorities also need to assess how they make decisions in a crisis. It appears that much of the decision-making, at least at first, placed a higher value on profit than it did on human life. For example, the Wall Street Journal claims that TEPCO delayed using sea water to cool the reactors because it was concerned about the damage salt water would do to its assets. At least 80 people’s lives (those working in the plant at the time of the accident) are at risk because of this decision, plus others involved in the response later on.

This points to a bigger problem in crisis management, worldwide and not just in Japan: lack of training in ethical decision-making in emergencies. Crisis-preparedness training normally focuses on technical details of how to fix problems and how to communicate with the media.

But executives are poorly prepared for making ethical decisions under pressure. When lives are at stake – particularly as they are in a potential nuclear meltdown – you can’t stage an escalated response. You must have an ethical response. You should be throwing everything you have at the situation from the beginning.

Japan is not facing a Chernobyl-style full meltdown. All the reactors at Fukushima have been successfully shut down and the focus has been on cooling the plant. The worst case scenario for Fukushima Daiichi is probably the Three Mile Island nuclear accident of 1979. This may mean a contaminated area of 30 kilometres around the plant. This is not great news – but it is not bad for a serious nuclear accident.

Could the outcome have been better? Possibly – if sea water had been used at the outset of the crisis. But we’ll have to wait for the final report following the inevitable investigation.

What does this mean for the future of nuclear energy, especially in earthquake-prone regions? China, which is part of the Pacific Rim of Fire and has experienced its own devastating earthquakes (Tangshan in 1976 and Sichuan in 2008), plans to build a staggering 40 new nuclear power plants by 2015. Since the incident in Japan Beijing has halted approvals for these pending an investigation into its own safety standards. But the plants will almost certainly proceed. Asia and the rest of the world need energy to sustain economic growth and development. Nuclear power is the best source because, accidents like this notwithstanding, it is much cleaner than oil and coal which contribute substantially to global warming.

Abandoning nuclear energy would be like refusing to cross roads because you might be run over. If you know the risks you can manage them. The nuclear energy industry now has a better understanding of the risks as a result of this unfortunate accident. (Here’s a stock tip: buy uranium mining and nuclear energy shares now. While prices have fallen close to 30 per cent since the tsunami, they will surely rise again. The future is in nuclear energy.)

Lessons will be learned about the design and location of power plants. To start with, they won’t be placed too close to the coast or major rivers. It wasn’t the earthquake itself that created the problems, but the flooding from the tsunami.

Lessons also will be learned about communications during an Asian crisis. The basic principles are: communicate often; communicate clearly; communicate truthfully; and communicate transparently. This may be more difficult in Japan. Japanese, like Chinese, is not a direct language; it is much more nuanced and intuitive than European languages. (At one point a Japanese official dealing with the crisis apologized publicly for causing “bother”. In the context of normal Japanese interaction this might have made sense; in a nuclear crisis it seemed out of touch with reality.) Japan’s agony may teach other Asian nations how to convey information quickly and accurately.

As I tell my clients in crisis situations: stop talking and start communicating. What the public expects – and has a right to expect – is the truth. But the most important lesson of the last ten days should be to incorporate training on ethical decision making into crisis preparedness training. People must come before profits – always and unconditionally.

Alistair Nicholas is Executive Vice President, Asia Pacific, with public relations firm Weber Shandwick and its public affairs arm Powell Tate. He is also a member of the Advisory Board of the China Global Risk Council. The views expressed herein are entirely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of his employers or their clients, or of any other organizations with which he is associated. Alistair Nicholas has represented nuclear energy companies and companies involved in the nuclear energy supply chain. He blogs about China, reputation management, and everything else at Off The Record.

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