F Corporate Environmental Social Responsibility and Environmental Law

Corporate social responsibility is a concept put forward relative to corporate business responsibility. Its meaning is gradually expanded with the continuous emergence of new social problems and the continuous improvement of social civilization, from business ethics to social well-being, from labor rights protection to environmental protection, etc. It can be said to cover all aspects. However, because the content of rights and obligations of corporate social responsibility is not clear, the aspects involved are also very extensive, and many of them are moral requirements, so it cannot be generalized into law. On January 1, 2006, Article 5 of the new "Company Law" that began to be implemented in my country stipulates: "Companies engaged in business activities must ... undertake social responsibilities." This is only a principled and abstract regulation in the general provisions. It has no practical significance for the specific operation of the law, but this does not mean that corporate social responsibility has lost legal protection.

    With the economic development in the past ten years, it has also brought many problems of environmental pollution and damage. The richer people's material life, the higher the demand for a comfortable and good environment. Therefore, environmental protection has become the most important part of corporate social responsibility. The so-called corporate environmental and social responsibility, in the usual sense, refers to the environmental protection responsibility that an enterprise undertakes autonomously as a "corporate citizen" for the benefit of the public. Of course, in a broad sense, it should include the mandatory responsibilities of environmental laws undertaken by enterprises. This part can be said to be the foundation for enterprises to undertake environmental and social responsibilities. Measures, or auxiliary systems and measures that enable stakeholders to play a promoting role, are an important driving force for enterprises to undertake environmental and social responsibilities.

   Due to the increasing concern of society for environmental issues, various legal systems such as chemical control, recycling, global warming, and energy conservation have also been continuously improved. Enterprises may make major environmental strategic mistakes before these systems mature. For example, a substance that has not been included in the scope of control temporarily may prove to be toxic in the future. Therefore, corporate environmental social responsibility emerges as the times require in developed countries, and it is also an effective measure for companies to avoid environmental legal risks in advance.

    For example, dioxins were originally considered to be harmless to the environment when used within a safe range, but in reality they have been proven to be harmful to the environment and human health; in some development activities, rare animals, plants or ecosystems have encountered Development activities were forced to stop. There are also pollutant discharges that meet the pollutant discharge standards, but if they cause damage to others, the enterprise cannot be exempted from civil liability for compensation. All of these may bring huge liability and operational risks to the enterprise. In order to avoid subsequent losses and liabilities arising from environmental issues, it is necessary for enterprises to take comprehensive measures to avoid environmental legal risks in advance, including undertaking corporate environmental responsibilities beyond the mandatory regulations.

   Another reason for the rise of corporate environmental responsibility is the need to circumvent international trade laws. Developed countries in Europe and the United States, which are major importing countries, usually have stricter environmental laws and regulations. In addition to requiring products to be environmentally friendly, they also require enterprises to conduct their production activities in an environmentally friendly manner. For example, in 1993, the European Union introduced the Rules for Voluntary Participation in Environmental Management and Environmental Audit by Industrial Enterprises (EMAS Rules), allowing industrial enterprises to voluntarily undertake environmental management responsibilities. It can be seen that, in order to facilitate trade with European companies or conduct business activities in Europe, it is necessary to build a corporate environmental protection system and evaluate its achievements.

Corporate Environmental and Social Responsibility Practices in Developed Countries

      One of the important ways to promote corporate environmental and social responsibility is to rely on the standards formulated by the International Organization for Standardization and the systems or measures formulated by important international organizations. These standards, systems or measures are recognized by the laws of various countries and the public to a certain extent. For example, many companies in Japan have established the concept of environmental management and incorporated environmental protection into their business behaviors as an important form of corporate environmental and social responsibility. These business operators have introduced the ISO14000 standard series in their operations, made public environmental audits, made public the environmental costs and the resulting benefits, identified environmental costs as a major issue in their business operations, and clearly stated their management policy of attaching importance to the environment. Among them, the ISO14000 standard series was published by the International Organization for Standardization in 1996, which requires companies to establish a management system and implementation method related to environmental protection. The environmental audit system is stipulated in the "United Nations National Accounting Information System" revised by the United Nations in 1993. The main purpose is to form a comparison between environmental costs and economic benefits, and to reflect the contribution of the environment to the economy and the impact of economic activities on the environment. influence. In terms of information disclosure, the laws of various countries have certain regulations. However, in order to enable the government and the public to effectively understand the specific situation of enterprises' environmental responsibilities, enterprises in major developed countries will disclose more detailed information in the form of annual reports. environmental information.

    Domestic laws also play an important role in urging companies to directly assume environmental and social responsibilities. Mandatory provisions in the law are the basis for enterprises to achieve environmental protection, while certain non-mandatory incentive systems in the law are boosters for enterprises to undertake environmental and social responsibilities, such as emissions trading, environmental taxes, and environmental protection agreements. Judging from the practice of the early completion of the "lead elimination plan" for oil refineries in the United States, the emission trading system encourages enterprises to improve their technology and discharge less pollutants than the legal permit, and promote enterprises to assume environmental and social responsibilities. push. Environmental taxes will curb the waste and consumption of resources, increase the cost of commodities that have a high impact on the environment, and promote companies to be more environmentally friendly. In addition, the U.S. government also signed agreements with companies, stipulating that if companies reduce the use of toxic chemical substances within a certain period of time, they can obtain material or spiritual rewards from the government, so as to encourage companies to undertake environmental and social responsibilities.

Still others are ancillary legal systems that enable stakeholders to play a facilitating role. The so-called stakeholders mainly include consumers, environmental protection organizations, enterprise associations and commercial banks who are closely related to the production and operation activities of enterprises. Their behaviors will have a profound impact on the behavior of enterprises. For example, "green consumers", after fully considering the necessity of purchase, will choose to buy environmentally friendly products with a slightly higher price to achieve the purpose of reducing pollution, but must have an environmental labeling product certification system as the basis, consumers only It is difficult to determine the nature of the product based on my own experience. Another example is that many laws in the United States, including the Clean Air Act, have provisions for citizen lawsuits, enabling environmental NGOs to file lawsuits on behalf of the public or nature, which has a significant impact on companies' fulfillment of environmental responsibilities. However, if there are no laws that regulate and promote the construction of environmental NGOs or other civil organizations, the above effects will not be achieved.