Discussion Of Corporate Environmental And Social Responsibility

Modem environmental problem emerges along with the process of industrialization and modernization.Due to the striking individualism of the early corporation legislation,corporation is merely regarded as an organization,through which the shareholder shares the capital and profits as well,therefore pursuing the greatest profit for the shareholder becomes the only objective of corporation.This,to a large extent, omits the responsibility of corporation as a member of the society,especially the environmental responsibility of corporation.At the end of the 19^th century and the beginning of the 20^th century,with the continuous strengthening of corporation and the negative effect of industry development upon society,society's attention upon corporation attains a higher level. The United States is the first country researching the corporate social responsibility, and as a concept,the corporate social responsibility was first advanced by Oliver Sheldon in 1924,thereafter,people began to realize that corporation should undertake certain common social responsibility besides pursuing its greatest economic benefit.Since 1930s,because of the frequency emergence of environmental nuisance,the environmental protection movement sprang up globally.Society has put more attention upon the environmental protection responsibility of corporation.It is necessary for the international society to act unanimously to solve these problems.The United Nations hold the Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm of Sweden,1972,and published the Declaration of Human Environment which put forward that the mankind should undertake the responsibility and obligation of maintaining the nature,as well as exploiting and utilizing it.In 1987,the World Commission on Environment and Development issued Our Common Future,which clearly gives the definition of sustainable development as well as documented the extensive economic impact on the environment and called for global concerted action to save the environment.It urged industries and corporations to take environmental responsibilities to arrest the decline of the environment.In 1992,the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Brazil published The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development and the Agenda 21.In January of 1999,at the World Economic Forum in Davost,Switzerland,Annan,the UN general secretary,advanced the UN Global Compact,which was officially started in the UN Headquarters in July,2000.Environmental protection claim was included among the social responsibility that the compact appealed corporation to observe.On December 12,2001,the Social Accountability International,short for SAI,issued the 1^st revised edition of SA8000,which concerns about the environmental protection responsibility of corporation.Therefore,the environmental protection responsibility of corporation has aroused great attention among international society.Corporation,as the main body of the economic activity,starts to bring the environmental protection and environmental management into its management decision,seeking for the objective unanimity of self-development and the sustainable development of social economy.Today the developing pattern of recycle economy has been definitely put forward in China,thus the corporate environmental responsibility has been a new question urgent to study in the theoretical world.From the perspective of environmental law,this dissertation takes researches upon the corporate environmental responsibility.Firstly,based on international environmental protection convention,environmental management standard and the historical facts of the legislation and development of world wide national environmental laws,this dissertation reviews the form and historical evolution of the environmental protection responsibility of corporation;and studies the form and development of the environmental protection responsibility of corporation through the form and historical evolution of theory of social responsibility of corporate of western developed country.This part of research will help to explore the developing skeleton of the environmental protection responsibility of corporation and provide helpful reference for the research and practice of environmental protection responsibility of corporation in our country.Secondly,this dissertation discusses the theoretical foundation of the environmental protection responsibility of corporation,and from two perspectives of external pressure and internal pressure,further analyzes the factual foundation of the environmental protection responsibility of corporation.This part of research will help to explore the theoretic and factual foundation of the environmental protection responsibility of corporation,establish the corner stone of the research below of the intension and extension of the environmental protection responsibility of corporation.Thirdly,stating from defining the concept of environmental protection responsibility of corporation,this dissertation analyzes the extension of environmental protection responsibility of corporation.Fourthly,this dissertation further discusses the internalization of the environmental protection responsibility of corporation and environmental management of corporation,dissertates that the corporate must internalize the content of the environmental protection responsibility of corporation into the corporate management system in order to effectively perform the environmental protection responsibility of corporation.Namely only the corporate internalize the content of the environmental protection responsibility of corporation into the corporate management system,can the actions of the corporation comply with the requirements of environmental protection.Fifthly,this dissertation illustrates TOYOTA from vehicle industry and HSBC from finance industry as examples,discusses the effects they achieve when performing the environmental protection responsibility,as well as deepens the understanding of the practical model of the environmental protection responsibility of corporation by case analysis.Finally,this dissertation,based on the conclusion of the research of the environmental protection responsibility of corporation and case analysis,together with current developing pattern of recycle economy,clews the direction of further research of the environmental protection responsibility of corporation.