Transnational Corporations' Strategic Responses to 'Sustainable Development'

Abstract

‘There were two issues we missed out on: transnationals and the military.’ (Comment from a Brazilian delegate on the closing day of UNCED.) Transnational Corporations (TNCs) can play a critical role in a sustainably managed world or serve as major impediments in this transition. The relationship between TNCs and environmental performance came under scrutiny in the buildup to the 1992 Rio United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). By way of background, this paper provides a critical review of the buildup in the corporate world to the UNCED. It then argues that there were strategic reasons why UNCED avoided an overall analysis of international investment and sustainable development. UNCED did raise a number of major intellectual and political issues about the relationship between TNC activity and sound environmental practice, and the management of this relationship within the corporate world and between the corporate and non-corporate worlds. These questions

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