Study On Corporate Environmental Responsibility

The positive commitment to environmental responsibility is an inevitable response to today's grim environmental situation, and a necessary requirement for enhancing the sustainability of economic development and the construction of a harmonious society. To some extent, it is also an effective way to promote long-term competitiveness of enterprises.This thesis explores the process of the localized construction of corporate environmental responsibility in China on the basis of defining the concept of CER and reviewing its studies at home and abroad. This paper also probes into the problems existed in CER and analyses their causes to point out that enterprises should be more actively respond to challenges of environmental responsibility and pressure to enhance the competitiveness of enterprises. Main contents are:First, this thesis analyses the subject relationships involved in CER, and considers that it contains two aspects, namely, the direct relationship between corporation and natural environment and the interactive relationship between corporation and stakeholders at an environment level. The former covers resources of corporations provided by natural environment and impacts caused by production and operations of corporations on the natural environment. The latter concerns about the flow and fight of the natural elements among subjects and its effects on the natural environment.Second, this thesis analyses the status quo of the domestic CER and argues that the focuses on the status quo of CER should not only be limited to the responsibility of companies in the production and management, but also should include expectations, requirements and actions of other community members, especially stakeholders, to CER. It concludes that performances of the corporation and stakeholders on this issue are less than satisfactory. There is still much room for improvement of CER.Third, with the help of the theory of social construction of environmental problems, this thesis analyses the process of the localized construction of CER in China, and holds that the localized construction of CER is on the basis of proposal and recognition of environmental problems. This process has a distinct Chinese characteristics, that is, the government plays an important role in every stage, which is different from the theory of Hannigan. A conclusion is that CER is still in heated debate and the task of localized construction is failed to accomplish.Fourth, this thesis uses the stakeholder theory to analyse the reasons why domestic corporates lack environmental responsibility, and thinks that the evasion of corporation environmental responsibility is related to the inner nature of companies, namely, the pursuit of economic interests, but the more important reason is the lack of environmental regulations and motivate action of the external stakeholders. This thesis selects government, the public and business partner, the three major stakeholders, and points that the shortcomings of the three parties in urging corporate environmental responsibility.Fifth, this thesis uses the theory of the competitiveness of enterprises and points out that facing increasingly stringent environmental governance structure, enterprises actively take environmental responsibility to help enhance the long-term competitiveness in two ways:first, enterprises actively respond to challenges of environmental responsibility, which will promote initiative of the technology and management strategy innovation of enterprises to improve response to complex economic environment; second, positive attitude and actions will also help enterprises better relations with stakeholders and obtain their support, which will gain competitive advantages for companies.