By Avi Kupfer

Avi Kupfer is a sophomore in Pierson College. He serves as Managing Editor of The Politic.

As the public continually becomes more aware of the environmental impacts of various business practices, many corporations are beginning to realize the economic benefits of “going green.” However, as a select few corporate leaders begin to examine the effects of their own business practices on the environment, many of their peers devote an incredible amount of time and money to influencing environmental policy in the opposite
direction. Within the United States, and even on the greater world stage, corporations and the Political Action Committees (PACs) who represent them play a large role in the mapping of environmental policy. Although some image-conscious businesses are beginning to adapt to an environmentally conscious consumer market, as long as national and international environmental policy is significantly influenced by polluting corporations, the movement towards commercial “greening” will remain underdeveloped.

Many conservation efforts are beginning to focus on a group that is the direct cause of some of the worst global environmental degradation: transnational corporations. These efforts focus on the understanding that any change within the corporate world will be made out of self-interest and directed at increasing capital gains. Many companies are making a concerted effort to appear environmentally friendly as the commercial value of words such as “sustainable,” “pesticide-free,” and “free-range” has increased drastically. Wal-Mart is beginning to purchase trucks that can drive more miles per gallon of gasoline than its previous fleet. Coca-Cola introduced a campaign to preserve the world’s fresh water supplies not only to improve their image to consumers but because of the understanding that dwindling fresh water resources in the future will harm Coca-Cola production.1

These examples represent the progress of corporations cognizant of the future of marketing in an environmentally conscious world. Although their importance must not be downplayed or marginalized, such examples are a very small step forward in the face of the continued power and financial capability of a global corporate lobbyist community that wishes to block pro-environment policy while weakening already existing environmental legislation and mandates.

Before focusing on the power of anti-environment corporations, it is important to discuss the existing
environmental checks placed on businesses. In the United States and Canada, recent policy efforts aimed at corporate environmental practices have focused on increased transparency. Recent legislative strides include laws that require firms to make pollution releases and transfers available to the public in these countries.2 On the international level, the 2002 International Environmental Policy Summit in Johannesburg released the most progressive global policy recommendations focused on the corporate world’s relationship to the environment.
At the summit, international development organizations helped to establish checks that require companies to report the full extent of their impact on the environment in order to grant full public access to relevant documents with the hope that corporations will take the negative environmental impact of their actions into account when making business decisions.3 Environmental policy which focuses on corporate transparency
is not the only form of progressive legislation in the area of the business-environment relationship.

Self-policing has become a popular legislative method of encouraging companies to self-police environmental standards. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Self-Policing Policy waives or reduces penalties when regulated businesses voluntarily discover, disclose, and correct environmental violations. A 2006 study of 551 companies that disclosed at least one environmental violation between October of 1998 and September of 2000 found that EPA inspections fail to encourage companies to take up self-policing and that the agency can do little to increase self-policing of environmental violations.4 Similarly, Voluntary Environmental Programs (VEPs) promise to provide firms and facilities additional flexibility in managing their environmental affairs in order to increase internal efficiencies and improve public image. However, a survey of 61 program managers of VEPs found that some stakeholders have a disproportionate level of influence in designing VEPs. Therefore, many corporations are able to minimize the environmental impact of participation in VEPs while simultaneously maximizing the program’s benefit to their public image.5 Clearly, self-policing, a policy system that has been flaunted as a progressive movement towards environmentally-friendly corporate decision-making, has major flaws.

There has been great success in the movement towards “corporate greening.” Self-motivated business reforms as well as policy-focused transparency and the creation of VEPs are important strides. However, commercial “greening” remains grossly underdeveloped due to the corporate hold over both national and international environmental policy. Although companies and PACs do not always directly shape legislation, businesses intent on rolling back environmental laws give more in congressional campaign donations than any other cluster of interest groups. Polluter PACs contributed $46 million to U.S. representatives between 1993 and 1996. More specifically, $13 million went to representatives who voted for the Dirty Water Act in the 104th Congress, which would have drastically lowered pollution standards and opened half of the nation’s remaining wetlands to development. Contributions totaling $11.4 million went to 209 congresspeople who voted in favor of 17 riders aimed at limiting the EPA’s ability to implement and enforce environmental laws.6 The monetary dedication of corporations that are intent on deregulating potentially environmentally harmful business practices has had a huge impact on Congressional legislation.

Those congresspeople who are monetarily indebted to the pollution lobby have crafted many of the laws concerning the corporate-environment relationship. Although Congress delegates the authority to create many important environmental rules and regulation to the EPA, interest groups have been able to extend their influence into this sphere through the biased information that they offer to Congress about the relative cost and effectiveness of regulations as well as scientific and technological concerns due to increasing environmental
protection.7 The EPA recently altered its Extremely Hazardous Substance List, removing phosphorous pentoxide, diethylcarbamazine, fenitrothion, and tellurium from the list. Similarly, the Control of Air Pollution
from New Motor Vehicles and New Motor Vehicle Engines established a program that in 1994 created compliance standards for automobile tailpipes in an attempt to standardize light-duty vehicles. It only subjected companies to the standards of the control once they had opted into the program.8 These two pieces of legislation are just two of the most well-known examples of the many U.S. environmental laws that the pollution lobby has manipulated.

Corporate influence on environmental policy is not only a reality in the U.S., but it also affects global conservation At the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development, commonly referred to as the Rio Earth Summit, 1,000 transnational corporations met with 100 heads of state and argued that poor environmental behavior was a thing of the past because they could afford to develop new technologies and could establish them abroad.9 However, this progressive policy statement has largely been ignored in the 15 years since the summit. Some firms have actively lobbied at the international level to allow for the continued
generation of hazardous waste. Transnational corporations have also influenced international environmental policy by taking an active role in creating lackadaisical rules under the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal.10

These corporations often shape the ways in which governments participate in international environmental
regulation. President George W. Bush withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change even before the Summit began and has refused to negotiate any new binding multilateral agreement, ensuring that no new compulsory policy would emerge from the conference. Additionally, the Bush Administration has weakened existing Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) by pushing for their subordination to World Trade Organization (WTO) rules.11 In effect, this has relegated international environmental policy to a position of inferiority below the Bush Administration’s ultimate dedication to trade.

Incredible revolutionary strides are being made in the area of corporate “greening.” Businesses that are conscious of the importance of environmentally friendly models and legislators who understand the necessity of regulating the relationship between corporations and the environment are making important advances in adapting business to the needs of a natural environment that continually suffers from anthropogenic changes. However, these largely publicized steps forward are miniscule compared to the influence of the national and international pollution lobby. Until environmental policy is freed from the monetary sway of the business world, the progression of corporate “greening” will remain stunted at best.

1 Chertow, Marian. “Government and Corporate Responsibility.” The Greening of Yale and
Beyond. Battell Chapel, New Haven. 18 Oct. 2007.
2 Clapp, Jennifer. “Cleaning Up Their Act.” Forum for Applied Research & Public Policy
16.4 (2002): 28-33
3 Juhasz, Antonia. “Where Corporations Fear to Tread.” Tikkun 17.6 (2002): 33-36
4 Stretesky, Paul B. “Corporate Self-Policing and the Environment.” Criminology. 44.3
(2006): 671-708
5 Carmin, JoAnn. “Stakeholder Involvement in the Design of U.S. Voluntary Environmental
Programs: Does Sponsorship Matter.” Policy Studies. 31.4 (2003) 527-543
6 Bergman, B.J. “Good Buy, 104th Congress.” Sierra. 81.6 (1996) 59
7 Kamieniecki, Sheldon. “Navigating the Maze.” Environment 48.5 (2006) 8-20
8 Ibid.
9 Clapp, Jennifer. “Cleaning Up Their Act.” Forum for Applied Research & Public Policy
16.4 (2002): 28-33
10 Clapp, Jennifer. “Cleaning Up Their Act.” Forum for Applied Research & Public Policy
16.4 (2002): 28-33
11 Juhasz, Antonia. “Where Corporations Fear to Tread.” Tikkun 17.6 (2002): 33-36

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