A-21: BUSINESS & INDUSTRY
Distr.
GENERAL
A/CONF.151/26 (Vol. III)
14 August 1992
ORIGINAL: ENGLISH
REPORT OF THE UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON
ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT
(Rio de Janeiro, 3-14 June 1992)
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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Notes
1/ See A/CONF.151/PC/125.
END OF CHAPTER 30
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====================================RRojas Research Unit/1996===========
