Cleaning up greenwash: the case for enforcing corporate environmental responsibility

Corporate Social Responsibility provides a means through which corporations can establish their green credentials, reassuring consumers and government that the corporation takes its social and environmental responsibilities seriously. But debates persist concerning the best means to ensure that corporate and wider community interests are harmonised and integrated into corporations’ operational practices. Voluntary action and corporate ethical policies are often promoted as the best mechanism through which to achieve corporate social responsibility. However, voluntary codes of practice and self-regulation regularly fail where they conflict with the drive for success and profitability or where the costs of true compliance are too high. Where self-regulation fails the consequences for the environment can be severe. While many corporations may embrace the concepts of social and environmental responsibility there are numerous examples of corporations who claim to act in a sustainable and responsible way while at the same time showing disregard for the communities in which they operate and causing considerable environmental damage. This paper argues that responsibility for environmental damage is both a corporate and social responsibility and should be the subject of regulation to ensure corporate responsibility for environmental damage