Environmental Protection and the Social Responsibility of Firms

Summary of Discussion on Corporate Social Responsibility and Business

This discussion focused on two questions: the role of ethics in corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the role of CSR in environmental policymaking.

Ethics and CSR

Paul Portney began the discussion by asking how should we think about the ethics of environmental protection in developing countries where more environmental protection would lead directly to less employment. Eric Orts responded that multinational firms increasingly adopt uniform environmental and worker safety standards wherever they operate. Although uniform standards may not be optimal economically, they can be justified on the deontological premise that all human lives should have equal weight. For Orts, ...