1、ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT REPORT Focus on Sustainability and its implications for CSR Adrian Henriques but there is practical and practical. There are, after all, many books that provide checklists of things to do, and promise fundamental, if not magical, change as a result. This book is not like tha
2、t it is aimed at those who need to develop a mental frame- work for thinking about the issues facing everyone, including those in business, and to take action in the light of their understanding. Who might such people be? One answer is prefaced by managers and executives with responsibility for . Ho
3、wever, the structures within companies change so rapidly, that it would be hazardous to try to complete such an answer. On the other hand, the sentence could have a variety of endings such as: corporate responsibility; environmental management; compliance; quality; public affairs; communications; pu
4、blic relations; corporate social responsibility. FOCUS ON SUSTAINABILITY AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR CSR 12INTRODUCTION All these areas, and others, have in fact comprised the lead in the sustainability debate within different companies. Any of these areas can become the worthwhile champion of efforts
5、to make companies more sustainable. Finally, this book is not for experts. The aim is not to try to develop a new approach to sustainability. Rather, the aim is to clarify and communicate what has been worked through elsewhere. How to use this book There are three different ways to use this book, de
6、pending on the readers current level of exposure to the idea of sustainability: read Part I: The big picture this part can be read as background, providing perspectives to help convince people that sustainability is a real problem facing us all and that companies can be part of the solution; read Pa
7、rt II: Getting it done only this part can be used as a source of ideas, material and approaches that could be useful in trying to determine what steps to take next. read both parts this will allow any proposed actions in your organization to be put into an overall context. xiii 1314The big picture P
8、ART I 1516Business trends and drivers It is not an accident that there is a huge interest in sustainability at this time. Sustainability is intimately connected to the key business trends with which all companies are working. Sustainability, which was originally introduced as a term and a principle
9、in the Brundtland Report (World Commission on Environment and Development 1987), remains a core concept, and the language and the conceptualization around it has taken many shapes, such as corporate responsibility (CR), corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate citizenship. This chapter se
10、ts out three key trends confronting companies: globalization, technology and the blurring of sector boundaries. It looks at the influence these trends can have on business operations and suggests how this might in turn affect the kind of impact that a company can have on the economy, on the environm
11、ent and on society. It also outlines three of the fundamental business responses that have emerged with increasing strength over the same period: the nature of faith in economic growth, ethical positioning and accountability. These responses are each key elements of the sustainability of a company.
12、Trend 1: globalization While it is very often cited as a key issue, it is not always clear what is meant by globalization and, if the meaning is clear, whether or not it is a good thing. Globalization concerns the increasing interconnectedness of the modern world. It has several aspects, of which th
13、e most important is probably the economic dimension. Economically, globalization is a way of describing the trend towards the ever increasing size of product markets. Where once a comanys market might have been seen as the local region a space perhaps 100 miles across now it may be global. In the la
14、te 1990s, the total amount of foreign assets held by the 100 largest multinational organizations was about US $1,800,000,000,000 and the total foreign sales of the same companies was about US $2,100,000,000,000 (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development 1999) Together with this, the size of
15、 companies has grown. Whereas in the past anticompetition authorities thought about the size of a 3 1 174 companyin relation to its country of origin and home market, the consideration is now at least continent-wide: is the company too big for Europe? As a result, companies may now outrank countries
16、 when comparing turnover to gross domestic product (GDP) (Held et al 1999). This increasing size of companies and their operations creates a situation where social, ecological and economic welfare becomes more dependent on companies. At the same time, the dynamics of globalization create a difficult
17、 situation for regulating authorities. Globalization, as the apparent abolition of national borders, also applies in the environ- mental and social domains. Pollution does not respect national borders. Acid rain produced in the UK is affecting Scandinavia. Similarly, overuse of water in one country
18、directly affects the ability to use water in other countries. Socially, the geographical reach of economic and environmental activities is affecting all of us. Global markets tend to mean global supply chains; and global supply chains mean that the peoples of the world are increasingly dependent on
19、each other for their survival. As a result, national economies and social structures are more vulnerable than before. National and cultural differences appear because, while globalization means the abolition of borders and differences, these differences then become visible and move closer to each ot
20、her. When supported by new communication patterns, including the Internet, these differences can turn into conflicts. A recent example of this is the case of the Danish cartoons, which created a crisis between western ideals of freedom of speech and Islaamic religious beliefs. As product markets exp
21、and ever further, the variety of cultural forms and biological species (and, of course, products) diminishes. Environmentally, socially and economi- cally, diversity is reduced; this, in turn, reduces the ability to respond adequately to challenges. Why is this happening? The simplest answer is that
22、 we want it to! Globaliza- tion, in so far as it is driven by economic growth, is a choice that the western world has made in order to sustain that growth. Sometimes globalization is presented as if it is inevitable. Yet there is clearly no natural law requiring it to happen. Through institutions su
23、ch as the World Trade Organization, most of the countries of the west are trying to ensure that globalization happens as fast as possible. However, the we that wants globalization is largely synonymous with certain interests in the West. Not everyone wants globalization, as illustrated by the demons
24、trations and cam- paigns against the apparatus of globalization such as the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, and large corporate projects such as genetically modified organisms. From the USA to Poland and the UK, from Turkey FOCUS ON SUSTAINABILITY AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR CSR 18
