Chapter
30
STRENGTHENING
THE ROLE OF BUSINESS AND INDUSTRY
INTRODUCTION
30.1.
Business and industry, including transnational corporations,
play a crucial role in the social and economic development
of a country. A stable policy regime enables and encourages
business and industry to operate responsibly and efficiently
and to implement longer-term policies. Increasing prosperity,
a major goal of the development process, is contributed
primarily by the activities of business and industry. Business
enterprises, large and small, formal and informal, provide
major trading, employment and livelihood opportunities.
Business opportunities available to women are contributing
towards their professional development, strengthening their
economic role and transforming social systems. Business
and industry, including transnational corporations, and
their representative organizations should be full participants
in the implementation and evaluation of activities related
to Agenda 21.
30.2.
Through more efficient production processes, preventive
strategies, cleaner production technologies and procedures
throughout the product life cycle, hence minimizing or avoiding
wastes, the policies and operations of business and industry,
including transnational corporations, can play a major role
in reducing impacts on resource use and the environment.
Technological innovations, development, applications, transfer
and the more comprehensive aspects of partnership and cooperation
are to a very large extent within the province of business
and industry.
30.3.
Business and industry, including transnational corporations,
should recognize environmental management as among the highest
corporate priorities and as a key determinant to sustainable
development. Some enlightened leaders of enterprises are
already implementing "responsible care" and product
stewardship policies and programmes, fostering openness
and dialogue with employees and the public and carrying
out environmental audits and assessments of compliance.
These leaders in business and industry, including transnational
corporations, are increasingly taking voluntary initiatives,
promoting and implementing self-regulations and greater
responsibilities in ensuring their activities have minimal
impacts on human health and the environment. The regulatory
regimes introduced in many countries and the growing consciousness
of consumers and the general public and enlightened leaders
of business and industry, including transnational corporations,
have all contributed to this. A positive contribution of
business and industry, including transnational corporations,
to sustainable development can increasingly be achieved
by using economic instruments such as free market mechanisms
in which the prices of goods and services should increasingly
reflect the environmental costs of their input, production,
use, recycling and disposal subject to country-specific
conditions.
30.4.
The improvement of production systems through technologies
and processes that utilize resources more efficiently and
at the same time produce less wastes - achieving more with
less - is an important pathway towards sustainability for
business and industry. Similarly, facilitating and encouraging
inventiveness, competitiveness and voluntary initiatives
are necessary for stimulating more varied, efficient and
effective options. To address these major requirements and
strengthen further the role of business and industry, including
transnational corporations, the following two programmes
are proposed.
PROGRAMME
AREAS
A.
Promoting cleaner production
Basis
for action
30.5.
There is increasing recognition that production, technology
and management that use resources inefficiently form residues
that are not reused, discharge wastes that have adverse
impacts on human health and the environment and manufacture
products that when used have further impacts and are difficult
to recycle, need to be replaced with technologies, good
engineering and management practices and know-how that would
minimize waste throughout the product life cycle. The concept
of cleaner production implies striving for optimal efficiencies
at every stage of the product life cycle. A result would
be the improvement of the overall competitiveness of the
enterprise. The need for a transition towards cleaner production
policies was recognized at the UNIDO-organized ministerial-level
Conference on Ecologically Sustainable Industrial Development,
held at Copenhagen in October 1991. 1/
Objectives
30.6.
Governments, business and industry, including transnational
corporations, should aim to increase the efficiency of resource
utilization, including increasing the reuse and recycling
of residues, and to reduce the quantity of waste discharge
per unit of economic output.
Activities
30.7.
Governments, business and industry, including transnational
corporations, should strengthen partnerships to implement
the principles and criteria for sustainable development.
30.8.
Governments should identify and implement an appropriate
mix of economic instruments and normative measures such
as laws, legislations and standards, in consultation with
business and industry, including transnational corporations,
that will promote the use of cleaner production, with special
consideration for small and medium-sized enterprises. Voluntary
private initiatives should also be encouraged.
30.9.
Governments, business and industry, including transnational
corporations, academia and international organizations,
should work towards the development and implementation of
concepts and methodologies for the internalization of environmental
costs into accounting and pricing mechanisms.
30.10.
Business and industry, including transnational corporations,
should be encouraged:
(a)
To report annually on their environmental records, as well
as on their use of energy and natural resources;
(b)
To adopt and report on the implementation of codes of conduct
promoting the best environmental practice, such as the Business
Charter on Sustainable Development of the International
Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and the chemical industry's responsible
care initiative.
30.11. Governments should promote technological and know-how
cooperation between enterprises, encompassing identification,
assessment, research and development, management marketing
and application of cleaner production.
30.12.
Industry should incorporate cleaner production policies
in its operations and investments, taking also into account
its influence on suppliers and consumers.
30.13.
Industry and business associations should cooperate with
workers and trade unions to continuously improve the knowledge
and skills for implementing sustainable development operations.
30.14.
Industry and business associations should encourage individual
companies to undertake programmes for improved environmental
awareness and responsibility at all levels to make these
enterprises dedicated to the task of improving environmental
performance based on internationally accepted management
practices.
30.15.
International organizations should increase education, training
and awareness activities relating to cleaner production,
in collaboration with industry, academia and relevant national
and local authorities.
30.16.
International and non-governmental organizations, including
trade and scientific associations, should strengthen cleaner
production information dissemination by expanding existing
databases, such as the UNEP International Cleaner Production
Clearing House (ICPIC), the UNIDO Industrial and Technological
Information Bank (INTIB) and the ICC International Environment
Bureau (IEB), and should forge networking of national and
international information systems.
B.
Promoting responsible entrepreneurship
Basis
for action
30.17.
Entrepreneurship is one of the most important driving forces
for innovations, increasing market efficiencies and responding
to challenges and opportunities. Small and medium-sized
entrepreneurs, in particular, play a very important role
in the social and economic development of a country. Often,
they are the major means for rural development, increasing
off-farm employment and providing the transitional means
for improving the livelihoods of women. Responsible entrepreneurship
can play a major role in improving the efficiency of resource
use, reducing risks and hazards, minimizing wastes and safeguarding
environmental qualities.
Objectives
30.18.
The following objectives are proposed:
(a)
To encourage the concept of stewardship in the management
and utilization of natural resources by entrepreneurs;
(b)
To increase the number of entrepreneurs engaged in enterprises
that subscribe to and implement sustainable development
policies.
Activities
30.19.
Governments should encourage the establishment and operations
of sustainably managed enterprises. The mix would include
regulatory measures, economic incentives and streamlining
of administrative procedures to assure maximum efficiency
in dealing with applications for approval in order to facilitate
investment decisions, advice and assistance with information,
infrastructural support and stewardship responsibilities.
30.20.
Governments should encourage, in cooperation with the private
sector, the establishment of venture capital funds for sustainable
development projects and programmes.
30.21.
In collaboration with business, industry, academia and international
organizations, Governments should support training in the
environmental aspects of enterprise management. Attention
should also be directed towards apprenticeship schemes for
youth.
30.22.
Business and industry, including transnational corporations,
should be encouraged to establish world-wide corporate policies
on sustainable development, arrange for environmentally
sound technologies to be available to affiliates owned substantially
by their parent company in developing countries without
extra external charges, encourage overseas affiliates to
modify procedures in order to reflect local ecological conditions
and share experiences with local authorities, national Governments
and international organizations.
30.23.
Large business and industry, including transnational corporations,
should consider establishing partnership schemes with small
and medium-sized enterprises to help facilitate the exchange
of experience in managerial skills, market development and
technological know-how, where appropriate, with the assistance
of international organizations.
30.24.
Business and industry should establish national councils
for sustainable development and help promote entrepreneurship
in the formal and informal sectors. The inclusion of women
entrepreneurs should be facilitated.
30.25.
Business and industry, including transnational corporations,
should increase research and development of environmentally
sound technologies and environmental management systems,
in collaboration with academia and the scientific/engineering
establishments, drawing upon indigenous knowledge, where
appropriate.
30.26.
Business and industry, including transnational corporations,
should ensure responsible and ethical management of products
and processes from the point of view of health, safety and
environmental aspects. Towards this end, business and industry
should increase self-regulation, guided by appropriate codes,
charters and initiatives integrated into all elements of
business planning and decision-making, and fostering openness
and dialogue with employees and the public.
30.27.
Multilateral and bilateral financial aid institutions should
continue to encourage and support small- and medium-scale
entrepreneurs engaged in sustainable development activities.
30.28.
United Nations organizations and agencies should improve
mechanisms for business and industry inputs, policy and
strategy formulation processes, to ensure that environmental
aspects are strengthened in foreign investment.
30.29.
International organizations should increase support for
research and development on improving the technological
and managerial requirements for sustainable development,
in particular for small and medium-sized enterprises in
developing countries.
Means
of implementation
Financing
and cost evaluation
30.30.
The activities included under this programme area are mostly
changes in the orientation of existing activities and additional
costs are not expected to be significant. The cost of activities
by Governments and international organizations are already
included in other programme areas.
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