Corporations and Environmental Pollution - Essay Example

Corporations and Environmental Pollution In recent years, there has been an increased global effort by major corporations to improve their environmental practices and performances. The increased effort has been informed by a popular realization that being “green” helps improve the business for these corporations. Consequently, there are a number of global efforts undertaken to reduce pollution by cutting down emissions or planting more trees. Labelling has also become a common practice where corporations seek to make consumers aware of their diverse undertakings to protect the environment (Schramme, 2011). Due the increased awareness about environmental pollution by corporations, consumers have increasingly demanded products that have been produced through environmentally safe methods by checking for seals that indicate whether the product is recyclable (Schramme, 2011). Even as corporations continue to create public perceptions that they care for the environment, critics have argued that such efforts cannot reverse the damages that have already taken place and those that continue to happen. It is against this background that the current essay explores whether corporations should be perceived as polluters or as protectors of the environment taking into consideration the efforts made under green initiates (Beder, 2009). Concern over protection of the environment comes in the wake of a major increase in the global consumption levels that has been pushed by globalization, which has linked the global market as well as the increased global population. Research indicates expenditure on consumer goods increased by four times from 1960 to 2000 where private global expenditures on consumer goods rose to more than $20 trillion in 1995 dollars (Starke, 2004). Corporations have taken advantage of this increase in global consumption to raise their production levels therefore increasing the industrial uptake of material resources. Based on the results on hundred multinationals, World Resources Institute (2001) reports that sales for this corporations increased by 50 percent from 1990 to 2000. The increased consumption level has led environmental degradation. Corporate environmental practices have been reforming over the years to carter for the environmental concerns that have resulted from this increase in consumption. There has also been an increase in both legislation and regulation covering various aspects of the corporate operations to ensure protection of the environment (Roberts, 2010). Apart from the various environmental initiatives, corporations have instituted teams headed by senior officers whose main responsibility it to develop environmental policies for the corporations. These policies are aimed at making proper assessments on the environmental impact of the corporation’s activities with a view to improving procedures to cope with environmental related crisis as well as to develop cost-effective investments to improve environmental performance. Cutting down on pollution has become a key priority for organizations that have put in place production measures linked to lean production as opposed to initiating expensive programs for waste management. Porter and van der Linde (1995) asset that production of any form of waste or pollution makes corporations inefficient economically and therefore corporations need to invest in innovative strategies that improve overall performance of the business. The teams recognize the role of the corporation in global climate change initiatives that aim to reverse environmental pollution for future sustainability (Swaffield and Bell, 2012). However, the effectiveness of these teams has been brought to question given that corporation have to balance their environmental responsibilities with the need to continue registering sustainable profits. Corporations whose profit margins are at risk of depletion will avoid the pursuit of more aggressive environmental policies and procedures by cutting down on the investments in pollution reduction. Corporations recognize that environmental conservation efforts can lead to positive financial payoffs when they comply with regulation and other governmental policies. However, for the results to be achievable over a long period there is need for diversion of a substantial amount of resources from other departments in order to fund the environmental conservation initiatives. Consequently, corporations will only participate in the conservation of the environment when shareholders’ dividends are not under threat and will engage in environmental politics aimed at fighting regulations in cases where they have to forego a significant portion of their profits (Roberts, 2010). The reforms through establishment of environmental teams have been at the forefront of the evolution in the nature of engagements of corporations with the need to undertake environmental conservation measures. Such teams have played a significant role in changing the perceptions of corporations from being in denial about their responsibility in environmental pollution as well as refusal to admit there is a need for regulation. Corporations in modern times recognize the role they have played in environmental degradation in addition to accepting the need for increased societal involvement in efforts to contain the process. This change in attitude informs the practice f corporations as they are now consciously initiating environmental friendly policies while also taking part in activities that are aimed at reversing some of the damages that have already taken place. Corporations such as Virgin Blue have put in place environmental conservation efforts that are aimed at compensating for the emissions from their planes (Beder, 2009). Corporations can no longer afford to ignore calls for environmental conservation due to the increased public awareness on matters environment. Creation of public awareness has been due to extensive the activities of the vocal and well-funded environmental NGOs whose objective has been to focus the imagination of the public on the negative consequences of production activities employed by corporations. Increased public scrutiny has forced corporations to join the environmental policy debate. Corporations have therefore reacted to the public scrutiny by introducing initiatives on environmental issues with the aim of appeasing the public. The result of such initiatives has been protection of the environment by corporations whenever their activities threaten to destroy particular ecosystems. The swiftness with which corporations move to protect the environment from negative effects of industry related activities can be seen in the Bhopal as well as Exxon Valdez disasters (Garcia-Johnson, 2000; Beder, 2002). Corporations have also developed partnerships with civil society with the aim of establishing a collaborative effort towards environmental conservation issues. These collaborations have exploited available skills as well as expertise of corporations and environmentalists and regulators and directed them to the management of specific global environmental issues (Delmas and Young, 2009). Corporations have put in place social responsibility measures that are aimed at cleaning up wastes that results from their activities as well as reversing environmental degradation that have resulted from their operations. However, Slavoj Žižek notes that the social responsibilities undertaken by these corporations do not result in sustainable well-being of the beneficiaries as they are left in the same environment. Further, there has been arguments that corporate social responsibility is a public relations ploy that are carried out with a view of creating illusions about how much different corporations have invested in environmental conservation initiatives. Corporations develop environmental policies as a reaction to various strategic reasons such as compliance with legislation, demand from stakeholder, and projected economic gains with ethical reasons being part of public relations (Bansal and Roth, 2000). Corporate social responsibility has become a disguise for corporations to continue with their pollution of the environment while shifting public focus towards the much-publicized environmental protection initiatives (Utting 2001). Corporations have been accused of camouflaging their environmental polluting activities by establishing associations with factions within the civil society. Such association can go to the extent of funding the formation of certain organizations used as a front to protect the interests of the corporations in public debates on environmental conservation issues. As a reaction to such activities undertaken by a number of corporations, there has been the establishment of the corporate accountability movement whose goal is to reveal to the public cases of double standards as well as gaps between corporate public rhetoric and practice. This movement also develops a framework to force corporations to improve their environmental performance by sponsoring active confrontational strategies of boycott and shareholder activism. Most of the corporate efforts towards environmental conservation have been pushed by regulatory agencies and public concerns over global climate change. Regulatory agencies and consumer groups pressurize corporations into initiating conservation efforts that they would not undertake on their own. For fear of losing customers, corporations would introduce repackaging practices by introducing recyclable wrapping that attest to their environmental concerns. Further, most of the environmental initiatives barely beat the minimum levels of pollution that have been established by the regulatory agencies. Consequently, when initiating environmental conservation efforts, the main concern for this corporation is always how to increase sales while beating regulatory policies (Schramme, 2011). It has also been argued that by putting in place elaborate environmental conservation efforts, corporations are only cleaning up their mess. The reason for the current environmental concerns is the past activities of corporations that extracted resources without caring about the future consequences. Because of their past activities, humanity is faced with environmental problems that the same corporations pretend to be solving. Before the current concern about environmental protection, corporations were motivated to increase their production by the rapidly rising consumption levels without putting in place mechanisms that will ensure sustainability in the extraction of the resources. As a result, the world has witnessed unprecedented depletion of resources where World Resources Institute (2001) indicates global deforestation rate is about 9 million hectares per year while wood consumption went up by 64 percent from 1961. Over half of the trees brought down during this period were used for industrial purposes such as for fuelling as well as industrial wood fibre. Additionally, industrial usage of fossil fuel was over four times higher in 2002 than it was in 1950 (Starke, 2004). This increase in consumption levels did not translate into appropriate measures to ensure future generations will have similar levels of access as those at the time. Environmental conservation effort by corporations is only due to the realization that their own future is threatened if they do not introduce such initiatives. Continued exploitation of resources at the same level as experienced in preceding years will not only lead to irreversible damage to the environment, but also the depletion of the resources. In such a case, these corporations will be forced to close down their business due to lack of input or fuel. Further, corporations that have been at the forefront of environmental conservation initiates have been found to be those with high public profile, which in most cases is associated with having a large-scale operation or consumer base. Additional motivators for corporations with popularized environmental performance include being transnational as well as those that have a negative public opinion about their environmental performance. Consequently, these organizations are only concerned with public perceptions as well as regulatory implications of their environmental conservation policies. Without this pressure, large corporations would use their vast resources to engage in corporate politics while transnational threaten to set up production in another country (DCosta, 2012; Tolba, 2001). During negations on environmental issues, corporations have been found to influence major decisions especially in reducing the impact of regulations on their operations. Corporations have developed extensive networks to represent their views whether in public or on the negotiation table. Given the vast material resources under the control of corporations, they are able to develop connections as well as professional expertise that will present their views as well as protect their interests in key areas of environmental concern. The media has become an important area that corporations invest their resources to influence the public opinion on environmental issues. By influencing the way the media reports environmental issues, corporations are able to turn public attention away from their activities as they continue to pollute the environment (Kraft and Kamieniecki, 2007). Beder (1997) notes the extent of corporations’ influences in the publications industry with the example of the Cato Institute, which according to author receives funding from corporations such as the American Petroleum Institute, Coca-Cola, Monsanto, Exxon and Ford Motor Company to pass propaganda about the corporations’ environmental initiatives. Beder (1997) singles out the media as being an avenue used by corporations to protect themselves from continued scrutiny into their environmental polluting activities. To paint corporations as protectors of the environment, the media is put under immense pressure to prevent radicalism and dissent therefore forcing the media to report their news with business friendly biases. Those who do not cooperate with these corporations are frustrated through instigation of law suits aimed at breaking the activists’ financial, emotional as well as mental resolve to continue fighting the corporations. Consequently, environmentalists would rather join hands with the corporations and receive their funding for environmental conservation efforts than engaging in open confrontations (Beder, 2002). The influence of corporation in advisory panels as well as authoring and reviewing of scientific reports is wide to the extent that no legally binding decisions are developed without their approval. All the international organizations on climate change have representatives from the business sector who wield extensive influence in the overall delivery by the organizations. For instance, in the climate change discourse, the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change offers a great leeway for the corporations to influence scientific evaluation process in the development of scientific frameworks to protect the environment. To ensure they have extensive influence on the overall income of various environmental initiatives, corporations coalesce with sympathetic government delegations to fight environmental policies that are seen as being unfavourable to their business. A case example is the ongoing relationship between OPEC states and fossil fuel lobby groups experienced during a number of climate change negotiations. The banning of NGOs from the negotiating floor has been blamed on the texts written by industry lobbyists on behalf of OPEC delegations (Newell, 2000). Corporations have also been fighting policies designed at the state level to protect the environment from their extensive pollution by claiming there is a need to protect competitiveness of the state in the global market. Apart from the usual joint interests between corporations and states in protecting the balance of trade especially at the international level, corporations have gone further to rally state officials into supporting what is claimed to be policies to promote industry competitiveness. The corporations have taken advantage of state dependency on their business as a means of creating and sustaining both investment and employment opportunities in addition to being a source of revenue through taxation. Therefore, by emphasizing these advantages accrued to the government from their operations, corporations are able to report a threat on sate competitiveness if their interest is affected negatively by global environmental regulations. These corporations use their resources to produce market research indicating considerable economic losses linked to specific regulatory undertakings. Levy and Egan (1998) note corporations have been initiating debates on consequences of regulations on certain economic aspects through funded studies predicting grim economic effects if restrictive policies connected to the Kyoto Protocol were ratified. Corporations cannot be seen as environmental protectors due to their enjoyment in environmental politics that are only aimed at protecting dividends for shareholders. Their social responsibility has been found to be public relation undertakings that are aimed at presenting their businesses as taking care of ethical outcomes of operations. Due to consumer and regulatory scrutiny, corporations have put in place strategies that are aimed at pleasing these groups of stakeholders into their activities with environmental policies that barely meet legislative requirements. In cases where profit margin is thought to be under threat, corporations would choose to protect their interest at the expense of environmental protection by forming partnerships with lobby groups and civil society. These corporations would also fund studies that spell negative consequences of regulations on the balance of trade of states in order to arm-twist their respective governments into siding with them on the pretext of protecting state competitiveness. Consequently, corporations are polluters and not protectors of the environment. Reference Bansal, P. & Roth K. (2000) Why Companies Go Green: A Model of Ecological Responsiveness, The Academy of Management Journal. 43(4), 717-736. Beder, S. (2009) Drowning in Greenwash, alive Australia, pp. 58-61. Available at: http://www.uow.edu.au/~sharonb/greenwash2.html Beder, S. (2002) Environmentalists Help Manage Corporate Reputation: Changing Perceptions not Behaviour, Ecopolitics: Thought and Action, 1(4), 60-72. Delmas, M. A., & Young, O. R. (Eds.). (2009) Governance for the environment: New perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Garcia-Johnson, R. (2000) Exporting environmentalism: US multinational chemical corporations in Brazil and Mexico. Cambridge: MIT Press. DCosta, A. P. (Ed.). (2012) Globalization and economic nationalism in Asia. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kraft, M. E., & Kamieniecki, S. (Eds.). (2007) Business and environmental policy: Corporate interests in the American political system. Cambridge: MIT Press. Levy, D. L., & Egan, D. (1998) Levy, David L. and Daniel Egan (1998)" Capital Contests: National and Transnational Channels of Corporate Influence on the Climate Change Negotiations. Politics and Society, 26(3), 335-359. Newell, P. (2000) Climate for change: non-state actors and the global politics of the greenhouse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Porter, E. and Van der Linde, C. (1995) ‘Toward and New Conception of the Environment –Competitiveness Relationship’. Journal of Economic Perspectives. 9(4), 97-118. Roberts, J. (2010) Environmental Policy. London: Routledge. Slavoj Žižek on corporate environmental responsibility. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpAMbpQ8J7g Starke, L. (2004) State of the World 2004: A Worldwatch Institute Report on Progress Toward a Sustainable Society. New York: WW Norton & Company. Swaffield, J., & Bell, D. (2012) Can ‘climate champions’ save the planet? A critical reflection on neoliberal social change. Environmental Politics, 21(2), 248-267. Tolba, M. K. (2001) Our fragile world. Oxford: Eolss Publishers. World Resources Institute (2001) Understanding the Forest Resources Assessment 2000. Washington DC: World Resources Institute. Beder, S. (1997) Global Spin. Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing. [Introduction and Chapter 8- Public Relations Strategies] Read More