The Elusive Saviours

Chapter 9: Conclusion

The central question of this book is whether international environmental management can be left to the voluntary activities of transnational corporations. Multinationals themselves have given their own answer: they are opposed to international, binding rules which identify them as a separate category of company and throw up restrictions.
There are however several strong arguments against leaving the initiative to the transnationals. We can summarize these under five headings:

the large measure of involvement transnational corporations have in, and the even larger responsibility they have for, environmental pollution
the possibilities available to transnationals for avoiding stricter environmental legislation by moving operations elsewhere
the imperfections in the development and dissemination of their environmental technologies
the general inadequacy of international corporate environmental management
the tendency to support only generally formulated and non-binding codes of behaviour while there are several examples of the effectiveness of binding international legislation.

This calls for international, binding environmental rules for transnational corporations as a separate category within the business community.
However, it is too much to expect of the international political community that this will happen. The far-reaching international regulations presently applicable to trade - the new GATT and the future WTO - will not have a positive influence on the environmental behaviour of transnationals.

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