Corporate Environmental Responsibility

In recent years, corporations adopted social responsibility including environmental responsibility as a strategy that allows the corporation to reach out to the community, as well as increase annual profit.  The main aspect of Corporate Environmental Responsibility is that corporations voluntarily improve their environmental performance and reduce any negative impact that their activities might have on the environment.  According to the Global Report Initiative, a voluntary report will assess the management approach taking into account the following parameters: materials, energy, water, biodiversity, emissions, effluent, wastes, transport and legal compliance. The common denominator for all these parameters is a legal study that checks the firm’s compliance with environmental law and standards. Once the legal environmental review is completed, the firm can decide if and how it can improve voluntarily its environmental performance beyond compliance. If the firm decides also to report voluntarily to the public on its environmental performance, it should take into account the accompanying legal risks, such as a class action suit from citizens or an NGO, or a claim of partial or misleading reporting from a shareholder or a third party. The article relates to the benefits of implementing voluntary environmental responsibility scheme with the legal hints needed for the right performance of it.