sustainable development 20 years on from the ... - José Eli da Veiga

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requirements of legislation; 14 and the <strong>development</strong> of corporate social responsibility strategies. This
trend is explained, among other factors, by the <strong>development</strong> of environmental legislation, by a
changing ethical perspective and by market preferences, particularly in export markets. Initiatives that
promote corporate responsibility —such as the United Nations Global Compact — have taken hold in a
growing number of firms in Latin America and the Caribbean (United Nations, <strong>20</strong>10). Global Compact
members contribute in various ways to the Millennium Development Goals, a subject that has been
tackled by the Regional Centre for Latin America and the Caribbean in support of the United Nations
Global Compact, set up in <strong>20</strong>09. 15
A company’s environmental impact largely depends on the nature of its activities. A significant
proportion of productive activity in the region concerns sectors and activities that are highly sensitive
environmentally, since they involve the extraction of natural resources, compete for land use with
ecosystem services such as carbon dioxide capture and biodiversity protection, or are energy-intensive. Of
the 50 largest firms in the region, 25 (including the five largest) operate in primary activities or the
processing of natural resources (hydrocarbons, mining, agribusiness, steel-metallurgy, petrochemicals).
Many smaller firms, including small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), operate within production
chains associated with the large firms in these sectors (United Nations, <strong>20</strong>10), making environmental
management particularly important for the region.
However, progress to date in terms of business behaviour varies according to company size,
ownership and financing mechanisms, among other points (United Nations, <strong>20</strong>10). Large firms —whether
transnational or local— linked to the global market through exports, investments and access to
international capital markets, have advantages over smaller businesses, both in terms of their capacity to
implement environmental management measures and corporate social responsibility strategies and in
terms of the cost-effectiveness of such initiatives. Critics also claim that these actions (which are usually
intensively publicized) have a relatively small impact on the environment and communities and do not
compensate for the broader environmental damage and social consequences inherent in the scale of their
activities and in production patterns (United Nations, <strong>20</strong>10).
In addition, SMEs often lack access to capital or the ability to make significant changes to their
production methods. Numerous SMEs still do not comply with current environmental regulations, often
because managers are unsure of the advantages of investing in environmental management and the
environmental impact their companies are causing (Correa, Van Hoof and Nuñez, <strong>20</strong>10).
Organizations in a number of countries and territories in the region have joined the World
Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), through which they provide member firms
with sustainability-related technology dissemination services, innovative approaches to
entrepreneurship, linkages with suppliers of products and services conducive to <strong>sustainable</strong>
<strong>development</strong> and other support (see table III.2). 16 Over the last few <strong>years</strong>, instruments have been
implemented to promote triple-bottom-line management (economic-financial, environmental and
social) among companies. These include the International Finance Corporation (IFC) guidelines for
implementing and evaluating responsible management systems; the guide for SMEs of the Global
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For example, the number of firms with ISO 14001 certification has gone up. Nevertheless, the number of
certified companies is still very low. Only 6,423 firms in the region had been certified in <strong>20</strong>10, while in Europe
there were 103,126 and in the Far East 124,922. See [online] http://www.iso.org/iso/iso-survey<strong>20</strong>10.pdf [date of
reference: December <strong>20</strong>11]
See [online] http://www.centroregionalpmal.org/.
See WBCSD [online] http://www.wbcsd.org/.