Argentina

One of my goals that I had in my undergraduate career was to leave the United States. I work full-time and so leaving for a full semester wasn't an option. I really wish that I hadn't waited til my senior year to leave the United States, but I am really glad that I had the opportunity to go to Buenos Aires, Argentina over Spring Break and learn more about corporate social responsibility.

In this page, I will be showcasing my trip to Argentina, what I learned, and what my biggest takeaways were from the trip, what I learned, and what I am taking away from this amazing experience. I am so grateful to have gone on this trip and I hope I can return in the future someday.

CAEM - A case study

The Argentine Chamber of Mining Companies (CAEM) is an organization that represents the mining industry in Argentina. CAEM was founded in 1991. Mining in Argentina is a big industry, and is positioned to grow significantly. Currently, Argentina is the 2nd largest producer in the world of Lithium, a rare earth metal used primarily in batteries.

CAEM discussed with us a lot of their initiatives, specifically with some of their corporate social responsibility goals. A lot of what they focused on was their initiatives in ramping up production of minerals essential to shifting to renewable or green energies. For example, in 2020 there were 10 million electric vehicles world wide and that number is expected to jump to 240 million electric vehicles by that time. CAEM believes that they play a key and crucial role in the world shifting towards green and renewable energies.

Another initiative that CAEM companies have taken on are the different consultation projects for the mines. CAEM discussed the importance of building the relationships with the communities that they're in, as they are huge stakeholders as they are heavily impacted by the operations of the mines. They took a lot of pride in making sure that the communities that they are in were taken care of and cared for.

While CAEM takes a lot of pride in their initiatives, I was skeptical of some of what they were saying, such as how taking care of the communities that they are in was a top priortiy. It didn't take a long time to find an article critizising the mining industry and the impacts that they are having on the local community. This article was published the day before we went to visit CAEM. The main concern is that the locals way of life will be disrupted due to water pollution.

The article goes further and discusses how more than 30 companies are looking to develop lithium mines in the Lithium Triangle. “We are guardians of the highlands,” said Flores de Callata, a local living in the Lithium Triangle. “We defend our land. … I’m worried not just for myself but for all of us. If the lithium (mines) come it’s going to affect the entire region, all of the waterways by extension.” The Argentine government is has even changed it's constitution to make it easier to waive indigenous land rights so that mining companies can mine in the region.

Tension between the government, mining companies, and locals have gotten so bad to where violent protests have broken out against the mines opening up. That's because the effects of mining can be seen in neighboring Chile, where water pollution got so bad that it started to effect the salt flats, killing off the microorganisms that species such as flamingos rely on for food, causing an ecosystem collapse. In addition, the mines are also contributing to a decrease in water in the region, due to the mining companies using a lot of water in their operations. The people that rely on the water to raise livestock are heavily effected, and has made life extremely hard.

“Before, it rained more here, and today it practically doesn’t rain. If you look out, it’s all dry. So it’s hard to care for your sheep, your llamas because there’s no vegetation,” Morales said as his wife tended to a patch of corn. “Our people are losing our traditions, our customs are being lost.”

A Chilean Lithium mining company SQM, got into trouble with the government by covering up the amount of water it extracted in 2016. It ended ip having to pay $51.7 million in damages caused by six infractions which included transparency concerns of contamination of fresh water wells.

“With the information we have available, we can say there has been no fundamental change in the surroundings (of the mines),” SQM spokesperson Barrera said.

Now, it would be unfair to assume that the companies affiliated with CAEM will do the same things as SQM had, but I don't think that it's entirely unreasonable for the locals to be concerned considering all that the mining companies have done already. There is a lot of money at stake, and I think it could be a good thing for CAEM to utilize these consultations, but it doesn't seem as though they are effective considering that people feel their culture and way of life is lost. I personally feel CAEM has a lot of work to do in terms of corporate social responsibility, and I would recommend that they pause some of their programs to address their mining practices to make it more sustainable, beneficial to stakeholders, and increase transparency.

United States V. Argentina - Practices

Government

When I was taking the taxi from the airport to the hotel, I saw a political ad like this. This ad translates to "An orderly country" and I also saw political ads that said "To be a normal country." This shocked me at first, as in the United States, we see a lot of ads calling for change and to be better. I thought to myself why would any country just want to be normal?

In every business visit and conversation that I had I asked what the biggest thing that was holding them back, and every person said the same thing, and that was the government. The government has made it extremely difficult to do business. For example, corruption and inflation are prevalent problems which I discuss the effects in the next sections. The government has made unwise decisions, for example, printing money to pay for social programs which has increased the money supply in the economy and has made inflation worse. The government has also been forced to take huge loans with the IMF and has defaulted on it's debt many times, making it risky to do business in Argentina.

"Argentina never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity" -Gabriel Fogila, Dean, Palermo University

Corruption

One of the most shocking statistics that I had learned on this trip were the responses that Argentines gave when they were asked "How do people get rich in Argentina?" The top responses were inheritance and corruption. This was a huge shock to me as in my upbringing, I was taught that in order to move up and get rich, you had to work hard and go to college, and it was shocking to me that the mindset in Argentina was different.

According to Statista, Argentina scored a 37 out of 100 compared to the United States score of 69 out of 100. I feel as though that while corruption in the United States exists, it seems to not impact day to day life whereas in Argentina. It plays a bigger role and I felt as though personally that it was more exposed in that it's almost an expectation that it will happen.

This causes their to be a lot of distrust in government. For example, in a lot of the businesses and non-profits that we visited said that this was a huge road block to doing business. Corruption effects a lot of the decisions that businesses make and a lot of people think that you need corruption to be successful and to make it out. I hope that this perception changes, but I understand why Argentines think this way, and I even feel in someways that they're right.

Corruption perception index in Argentina 2023 | StatistaArgentina's corruption perception index score worsened from 42 points in 2020 to 37 points in 2023, a five-point decrease.

Inflation

One of the things that took me back was the inflation. When I exchanged dollars for pesos on the first day, I realized that the cash that I needed to carry wouldn't be able to fit in my wallet. I had to buy a fanny pack just to carry cash that I needed. Inflation was 276.2% in Argentina, and in this section you'll see some of the affects that it has on businesses as well as on the every day people.

This picture shows just how much cash you needed. In this case, we were at a nicer restaurant in Buenos Aires. My meal cost about $20 USD which equated to $20,000 Pesos. The highest denomination was the $2,000 Peso and in my experience, it was very rare to get that high of bill since it was just introduced. It was more common to get the $1,000 peso. This makes business transactions more difficult as it takes more time to complete them.

This next picture shows how complicated it can be to simply count how much money you need to pay for the bill. Yes, we did need calculators to calculate how much each person's share and to count the amount of cash that we had. Back in the United States, this task would have taken me five seconds to do, but took us 15 minutes at times to figure out the bill, count, and pay. I had a conversation with an Uber driver that said that when making big purchases, such as a down payment for a house, they would wheel suitcases into the banks and they had to have special machines count the money to save time. Even with these machines, simply counting the money would take 4-5 hours. This makes business extremely difficult and inefficient. Every business and non-profit that we visited discussed how it was so difficult to plan operations more than 3 months out because of how quickly and unpredictable the prices change. Long-term projects are a nightmare for this reason and very risky to take on, and can't be planned like they are back in the United States. Every business felt that in a lot of ways, their hands were tied yet still they continue and persist.

In this picture here, you could see that the prices have changed so much that companies have stopped printing new posters and banners and have started to put small signs on the already existing posters to show the new price. In my observations, this was a very common sight. Prices have been known to change daily. This makes concepts such as saving money a foolish idea, as your money will lose a lot of it's worth sitting doing nothing. That's why a lot of the businesses and people that we talked to said that they would rather spend the money they got on something that they needed than saved it.

You can see this in this next picture. I will admit, this is the most extreme example that I had found, but businesses will incentivize paying in cash rather than with credit, because by the time they get the cash from the credit card companies, the cash will have lost a significant amount of it's buying power. Waiters also told us that tips made on card were paid out often times a month after we dinned at the restaurant, and the cash would lose a lot of its value by the time they got it.

Inflation in the county impacts a lot of the decisions that every day people make. Saving in general is a foreign concept I have found and being in Buenos Aires for the short amount of time, I understood why. In the United States, we had inflation close to 7% that stretched budgets and wallets as much as they could. Inflation in recent months has been slowing significantly, but still has a long way to go before it's "normal" again.

The Disappeared

During the 1980s, Argentina was under the military dictatorship. The dictatorship would take people that it deemed a threat and then torture and kill them. Their kids would then be placed in "suitable" homes. The pictures here shows how the Argentine people remember the disappeared.

The first picture is at May Plaza, where each rock represents a person that disappeared during the regime. The second picture shows a mural and a plack on the ground, this was for a specific person that disapeared. This can be seen throughout the whole of the city where small memorials like were made for specific individuals. The last picture shows a mural dedicated to the Grandmothers of May Plaza. They protested the military dicators practices of kidnapping people and today help reunite those who were seperated.

Reflection

the role of Business, NGos, and non-profits

Before this trip, I did think that corperate social responsibility was important, however, it didn't really occur to me just how important it really is. Businesses hold a lot more power than I realized and even in democracies such as Argentina and the United States, have huge influential power to make policy changes. Making sure that there is a system in place to ensure that all stakeholders voices are heard and concerns addressed is important.

This isn't an easy thing to do however. There are so many different factors at play. In this e-portfolio and reflection, I criticized the government, CAEM, and the country as a whole. These are complex issues with complex solutions, and there are a lot of forces and reasons as to why the government and CAEM are making the decisions that they are making. I still think, however, that the government and CAEM have a duty to their stakeholders, and while I think that both are taking steps towards the right direction, there is still a long way for both of them to go.

I also think that it's important to point out however businesses, NGOs and non-profits can't be alone in fixing societal issues, rather government and the people need to be apart of the solution as well. Businesses need to work alongside communities and government in order to create an impact and have positive change, otherwise the initiatives that they take on will be useless. This is something that I thought was important before, and then was reaffirmed in after the trip.

Future implecations

Argentina is a beautiful country with a rich history and culture. I absolutely loved visiting and learning about corperate social responsibility in Argentina and it has impacted me in a lot of ways that I didn't know it would.

The first thing that I realized is just how much I love traveling. I think that trips such as this helped improve my global mindset. I learned a lot this trip and I am so thankful that this was the first country outside of the United States that I got to travel to.

For example, before this trip I would read on the news about certain policy decisions that Argentina was making. I would wonder why in the world would they decide to make that policy decision? By the end of that trip a lot of the questions that I had were answered. I think that it's important to nto only be open minded, but actively seek other perspectives and this trip has made me realize that I need to do that more, and so I am going to actively put myself in positions that force me to look beyond my perspective and understanding.

I also really want to utilize my Spanish in the future whereever life may take me. Whether that be in my career or in volunteer work, I really want to continue to develop myself so I can be fluent in Spanish. This trip made me realize just how much I love speaking and using Spanish and even since I've gotten back, I have made an effort to use Spanish more.

In the professional world, I want to take what I learned about corperate social respoinsibility with me so that I can make a positive impact in the position that I am in. Being in human resources, I want to make sure that hiring practices are fair and equitable across different groups and take on initiatives to promote a sense of belonging in the workplace. This is actually a huge problem in the business world right now, and I hope by promoting community partnerships like the ones that I learned about in Argentina, I will be able to better accomplish this and promote corporate social responsibility at whatever place I am at.

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