Earlier quoted context omitted.
Flashback to 1880 Oklahoma, US: "What if an oil research company doesn't want to be a supervillain or do bad things but they (or their investors) decide it's safer to just do the research in a jurisdiction where they face less risk of being subjected to regulatory burden especially during the early exploratory stage." Edit: In case anyone is confused, Post 1880, Land in modern day Oklahoma was considered "unassigned"…
I'm sorry but despite the edit I still fail to get the point you're making.
This kind of "externality washing" is talked about as though it were some kind of amoral or practical business matter separate from ethical decisions, rather than an explicit attempt to avoid responsibility for the community that you are moving into.
That is to say, organizations look for economic areas that do not have power structures that will scrutinize, push back or otherwise enforce community social standards on said organizations. Capital will always find a downtrodden population to exploit for it's own development BECAUSE they do not have other protections.