Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
stood by companies as the “license” being granted, whereas resentment
may build over time and lead to widespread resistance once communities
have the social capital to protest and take direct action.
This dimension of CSR is directly relevant to the environmental effects
of mining, because a failure to deal with these effects is often central to
a failure to secure, or to the loss of, a social license to operate. For instance,
the closure and ultimate abandonment of Rio Tinto's Bougainville copper
mine in Papua New Guinea resulted in part from the widespread
environmental damage associated with the project. Numerous proposed
projects in every region of the globe have been delayed and many ulti-
mately abandoned because of concerns regarding their potential environ-
mental impacts, and it is evident that local communities and populations
affected by multiple projects distinguish clearly between them on the basis
of their expected environment impact (Ali and Grewal 2006).
However, the case of Fiji's mining and bottled-water sectors shows
that CSR is still coming of age in the context of many developing coun-
tries. Dependence of an isolated economy on foreign investment per se
is not a problem, but the qualitative aspects of that dependence in terms
of accountability to international institutions must be ensured. Even with
diversifi cation of the economy, development may still not meet the stan-
dards of environmental and social justice without some larger transna-
tional institutional pressures (Frynas 2006). The emergence of global
norms such as corporate social responsibility shows some promise in this
regard, but their effi cacy is subject to the establishment of structures of
global environmental governance. Such governance structures will inevi-
tably be hybrids of public and private enterprise. Citizen pressure, either
through ownership of shares or through deliberative democracy within
a public context, is needed to diminish the growing cynicism about
foreign investment in developing countries and the perceived injustices
of globalization.
Notes
1. Calculated at constant 1995 prices, at factor cost (Fiji Islands Bureau of
Statistics 2007).
References
Akcil, Ata. 2006. Managing cyanide: Health, safety and risk management prac-
tices at Turkey's Ovacik gold-silver mine.
Journal of Cleaner Production
14(8):
727-735.
