Portrayal of sustainability principles in the mission statements and on home pages of the world's largest organizations

Conservation can be achieved only if sustainability is embraced as core to organizational cultures. To test the extent to which the related concepts of sustainability, conservation, response to climate change, poverty alleviation, and gender equity have been incorporated into organizational culture, we compared mission statements published from 1990 to 2000 with those published in 2014 for 150 organzations, including conservation nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), aid NGOs, government development agencies, resource extraction companies, and retailers (30 in each category). We also analyzed the 2014 home web pages of each organization. Relative to the earlier period, the frequency with which mission statements mentioned poverty alleviation, biodiversity conservation, and a range of sustainable practices increased only slightly by 2014, particularly among resource extractors and retail companies. Few organizations in any sector had embedded either climate change or gender equity into their mission statements. In addition, the proportional intensity with which any of the aspirations were expressed did not change between periods. For current home pages, conservation NGOs, resource extractors, and government agencies were significantly more likely to acknowledge the importance of matters that were not part of their core business, but few aid agencies or retail companies promoted goals beyond alleviation of crises and profit maximization, respectively. Overall, there has been some progress in recognizing poverty alleviation, biodiversity conservation, and sustainable practices, but gender equity and a determination to reduce impacts on climate change are still rarely promoted as central institutional concerns. Sustainability in general, and biodiversity conservation in particular, will not be achieved unless their importance is more widely apparent in core communication products of organizations.     

Sustainable design for automotive products: Dismantling and recycling of end-of-life vehicles

The growth in automotive production has increased the number of end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) annually. The traditional approach ELV processing involves dismantling, shredding, and landfill disposal. The “3R” (i.e., reduce, reuse, and recycle) principle has been increasingly employed in processing ELVs, particularly ELV parts, to promote sustainable development. The first step in processing ELVs is dismantling. However, certain parts of the vehicle are difficult to disassemble and use in practice. The extended producer responsibility policy requires carmakers to contribute in the processing of scrap cars either for their own developmental needs or for social responsibility. The design for dismantling approach can be an effective solution to the existing difficulties in dismantling ELVs. This approach can also provide guidelines in the design of automotive products. This paper illustrates the difficulty of handling polymers in dashboards. The physical properties of polymers prevent easy separation and recycling by using mechanical methods. Thus, dealers have to rely on chemical methods such as pyrolysis. Therefore, car designers should use a single material to benefit dealers. The use of materials for effective end-of-life processing without sacrificing the original performance requirements of the vehicle should be explored.     

The Concept and Theoretical Implications of Carbon Emissions Rights Based on Individual Equity

Abstract

Climate change has become a hot topic in international environmental negotiations. For post-Kyoto international climate regime negotiations, many countries have proposed a variety of frameworks to share the emission reduction responsibilities and allocate carbon emission rights, and have tried to quantify the emission reduction obligations of all countries based on the perspectives of international equity and individual equity. In this paper, the authors have distinguished the concepts of carbon emissions rights based on these two perspectives respectively, have analyzed the relationship between carbon emissions per capita and economic development, and have calculated and compared the proportion of cumulative emissions per capita of different countries in history and future, and then authors conclude that emission reduction obligations should be allocated based on each country’s conditions, including historical emissions, development stage, and future demands. Developed countries should take the initiative to significantly reduce their emissions because they have already accomplished their industrialization process. However, developing countries are still in the process of industrialization, which requires more emission rights to meet their development needs. For China, the concept of carbon emissions based on individual equity can be used as a theoretical tool for the allocating the international carbon emissions rights.     

Between Guilt and Obligation: Debating the Responsibility for Climate Change and Climate Politics in the Media

ABSTRACT

The “common but differentiated responsibility” of developed and developing countries to mitigate climate change is a core principle of international climate politics—but there is disagreement about what this “differentiated responsibility” amounts to. We investigate how newspapers in developed countries (Australia, Germany, United States) and emerging economies (Brazil, India) covered this debate during the UN climate summits in 2004, 2009, and 2014. Newspapers in both types of countries attributed more responsibility to developed than to developing countries. In line with social identity theory, however, media in developed countries attributed less causal responsibility (blame) to other developed countries than media in emerging economies. The latter countries’ media, in turn, attributed less responsibility to other developing countries than media in developed countries. At the same time, in line with the “differentiated responsibility”, media in developed countries attributed more responsibility to their own countries than media in emerging economies.     

Supplier assessment based on corporate social responsibility criteria in Indian automotive and textile industry sectors

Mandatory disclosure of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting forces supply chain members to consider CSR issues in developed countries. Researchers have viewed CSR content within different themes, such as human (social), ethical and environmental perspectives. So far, in India, very little research has been done to study the impact of human issues in employment (social), ethical issues in business operations and pollution (environmental) issues at both regional and specific sector level. This paper emphasises the perspective view of supplier selection, considering CSR issues as opposed to traditional methods using conventional selection criteria such as cost, quality, delivery and service. It employs six CSR criteria such as discrimination, abuse of human rights, child labour, long working hours, unfair competition and pollution to assess small- and medium-sized suppliers who produce and deliver products to the automotive and textile industry sectors. The results of this study indicate that to prevent discrimination against pay variation, minimise cases of abuse of human rights and incidence of child labour, suppliers must put in place proper policies and procedures regarding employment contract, identification and verification records. Furthermore, to reduce unfair competition, suppliers of both automotive and textile sectors may introduce processes for investigating reports of unethical conducts and take severe disciplinary action. The suppliers of both automotive and textile sectors believe that the competitive advantage can be achieved through environmental oriented business practices. However, they differ in their approaches in attaining this objective.     

Social licences to operate: for better not for worse; for richer not for poorer? The impacts of unplanned mining closure for “fence line” residential communities

Establishing “social licences to operate” with communities has become a significant corporate social responsibility agenda. The complex dynamics of these relationships can compound the impacts for communities when these contracts are not upheld. This article documents reflections from a rapid rural appraisal conducted in the Shire of Ravensthorpe in remote Western Australia after the Ravensthorpe Nickel Operation was “mothballed” 9 months into a projected 25-year lifespan. It captures how communication about the project and its time frames created a sense of consistency, predictability, certainty and trust – enabling social licence. The raising of hope and the emergence of mistrust underpin social, environmental and financial impacts of this event for the local community. Embedded in the theoretical dimensions of social licences, this case study highlights the problematic of social licences that engage with non-contractual stakeholders as partners in “booms” but have no legal responsibility towards them in times of “bust”.     

Drivers for Corporate Environmental Responsibility (CER)

There is a limited body of research into what drives some major companies to become aware of their environmental responsibility, what drives some to develop policies, and for an even smaller number of companies, what drives them to act on these policies and actually change their practices to become more environmentally responsible. This paper draws on part of the research conducted for a PhD, and looks at what a selection of senior business leaders from major Australian and international companies, as well as key academics, corporate analysts and environmentalists believe are the major drivers for corporate environmental responsibility (CER). While the key finding, namely that government legislation or the threat of legislation, is the number one driver, came as no surprise and concurs with findings of other studies (Emtairah et al.: 2002, Who Creates the Market for Green Products? An Analysis of the Role of Different Actors in Relation to Supply and Demand of Green Products, Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, Stockholm; Faruk: 2002, The Ashridge Journal; Husted: 2003, Environmental Science &; Policy 2, 61–74), what was a surprise was the level of support from business leaders for more government intervention in the form of policies, including legislative, to encourage or force greater CER.     

Impact of the FTSE4Good Index on firm price: an event study

This paper examines whether corporate financial performance is affected by public endorsement of environmental and social performance. Event study methodology, which relies on the notion of market efficiency, is used to examine the relationship between positive and negative announcements and changes in share prices or daily returns. Inclusion in and deletion from the FTSE4Good UK Index is used as a proxy measure for good (poor) corporate social responsibility. The abnormal or unexpected daily returns associated with an event are calculated and their significance tested. The results show a trend towards positive and negative announcements having the expected effects on daily returns. But these movements are not significant and the data do not suggest that a firm's presence on the index brings it any significant financial return for signalling its corporate social responsibility.     

武钢炼钢厂落实安全生产责任制的几点经验

抓好安全生产责任制工作,是促进安全生产的良好途径,是其它各项安全生产规章制度得到实施的基本保证。介绍了搞好安全检查生产责任制的几点经验。     

产权性质、市场竞争与企业社会责任行为——基于政治寻租视角的分析

无论是古典经济学理论、社会契约理论还是利益相关者理论,似乎都缺乏了一个重要的元素:政府行为以及政治、经济体制的影响,而只是将政府作为一个仅仅取得税收收益的利益相关者纳入我们的分析范畴,忽视了不同政治体制下政府构成了企业生存重要环境的特殊事实,这样的淡化直接影响我们对企业社会责任行为的实然理解。根植于西方社会的传统企业社会责任理论没有过多的考虑政府行为以及政治体制的影响,是基于其自身的制度背景与社会文化,它们是以高度自由的市场经济为基础,政府对经济(企业行为)干预很少,整个政治经济制度更加贴切新古典经济学的假设。而以中国为代表的新兴市场国家,政治经济体制改革和经济转轨使得制度环境对经济运行和企业决策有着重要影响,这为政治经济学理论的运用提供了制度基础,也为从政治经济学角度分析公司社会责任行为提供了研究机会。本文以我国2004年-2011年沪深股市的上市公司为研究样本,基于新政治经济学的寻租理论,研究了我国企业社会责任行为的寻租动机。研究的结果发现:我国企业社会责任行为呈现出明显的寻租倾向,而由于受到二元经济体制割裂的影响,相对于国有企业具有产权联系的先天优势,非国有企业社会责任行为表现出更为强烈的政治寻租倾向。实证研究同时也表明,产品市场竞争越激烈,企业寻租倾向越强。论文的研究构建了我国企业社会责任行为新的分析性框架,拓展了企业社会责任行为研究的相关文献。