Blackwell Reference Online

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Comment on this article   Transnational corporations (TNCs) are a recent phenomenon in the evolution of industrial society and in world development, evolving more or less parallel to economic globalization. The relative importance (vis-à-vis nation-states) and the impact – both positive and negative – of TNCs on the global and local economies, on the peoples, and on the environment have increased in recent decades. Yet, TNCs operate in some sort of political and legal vacuum, as they have grown beyond the control of any single nation-state. In matters of environmental protection, as on other issues, TNCs therefore simultaneously try to shape this vacuum by defining private environmental standards and to take advantage of this very vacuum to the environment's detriment. Often TNCs do both at the same time. However, they are obliged to deal with other actors such as environmental groups, governments, consumers, and other stakeholders. In this essay, we offer both a fact-based summary and a critical appreciation of the evolving relationship between TNCs and the environment. The essay is structured as follows: in the first section, we describe the very phenomenon of TNC growth. In the second section, we establish the various relationships between TNCs and the environment from a conceptual point of view. In the third section, entitled “Greening TNCs,” we highlight the numerous environmental ... log in or subscribe to read full text