On Multinationals’ Environmental Responsibility

In modern world, environmental pollution and destruction are increasingly serious,most of natural resources that people lived and developed on are in danger of drying up,the environmental crisis becomes the difficult question of the whole world. Theenvironmental problems that people triggered are the product of economy and thesocial development. Develop and destruction of environmental problem results fromthe industrial developed countries and regions. But in the economic globalization,developing countries inevitably absorb into the international integration ofmultinational’s strategy system, all kinds of environmental problems appeared.Multinational corporations are not only the makers of environmental problems, butalso the solver of them. Such as in the financial sector, mainly in the field ofinternational commercial loans and environmental liability insurance, multinationalcompanies actively practice environmental responsibility to prevent, reduce andeventually solve the global environmental problems.Corporate environmental responsibility originates in western country. From thewestern scholar research relating to corporate environmental responsibility can be seen,the study of corporate environmental responsibility is accompanied by the research oncorporate social responsibility. Based on Carol’s “Three-Dimensional ConceptualModel Of Corporate Performance”, corporate environmental responsibility can bedivided into environmental economic responsibility, environmental legal liability,environmental moral responsibility and environmental noblesse oblige.On theoretical basis, part of the corporate environmental responsibility is areference to the basic principles of corporate social responsibility, part of them is basedon the particular environmental issues and the special perspective of the environment.In modern society, strengthening social responsibility is a requirement for allbusinesses and organizations. Multinational’s CSR and environmental responsibilityget more attention in academia, and is specially stipulated in all kinds of normativedocuments. Although environmental problems are mainly caused in the first and secondindustry, but the subject does not exclude the industry that engaged in the tertiaryindustry, especially finance can not be ignored. The multinational’s environmentalresponsibility is reflected in the two aspects: international commercial loans andenvironmental liability.In the field of international commercial loans, there are a lot of normativedocuments which emphasize the environmental responsibility of Commercial Banks,but the implementation of the rules for specific mechanism is mainly “InternationalFinance Corporation’s Performance Standards on Social&EnvironmentalSustainability” and the “the Equator Principles”.It is different from the field of commercial loans mainly on soft law, there aresome support in both international law and domestic law in the field of environmentalliability insurance. On environmental liability insurance, the issue needs to emphasizeon the responsibility of the two kinds of main body. One is who need to establish socialresponsibility consciousness and initiative for social responsibility insurance for thoseenterprises that may cause environmental pollution. The other is the insurancecompanies, which need to provide the environmental liability insurance servicepositively and to regulate environmental liability insurance rates reasonably. Based onmultinational’s particular practice, especially considering multinational’s investment inChina, highlighting the multinational’s environmental responsibility in the field ofsocial liability insurance has specific significance.