(introduction...)
How might initiatives associated with corporate responsibility
be scaled up and deepened so that business can make a more
meaningful contribution to sustainable development? And are approaches, which
are currently in vogue, centred on voluntary initiatives and partnerships,
likely to be effective? This concluding section addresses these questions.
As noted earlier, regulatory pressures constitute perhaps the
most powerful driver of corporate responsibility. But ask business what should
be done to move the corporate responsibility train forward, and a very different
set of conditions is likely to be proposed. One group of business leaders has
put at the top of its list freer and more open markets... stable and
predictable trade rules... business should be encouraged voluntarily to achieve
agreed standards... [and] governments should work with business... to set
targets that recognize the realities under which business operates...
(Schmidheiny et al., 1997:54). Such a list of recommendations does not appear to
be very different from one that would have as its objective the promotion of
economic growth and profit maximization. While such a response might be expected
from the business community, it is perhaps less expected from other development
actors. But increasingly, international organizations and national governments,
as well as some NGOs, are sounding a similar tune. Two institutional
arrangements, in particular, stand out in the contemporary drive to promote
corporate environmental and social responsibility: voluntary initiatives and
partnerships (Nelson, 1996; UNEP, 1998; UNCTAD,
1999).