Business and Environmental Governance

It may be noted that within the private sector itself, these has been a corresponding change of behavior, shifting the emphasis from that of simply reacting and responding to government regulations to one of voluntary, self-governance and of contributing to the efforts of the society at large to improve the quality of the environment as a good corporate citizen. [...] Environmental Governance and the Role of Business 1.1 Introduction Following the high growth of the post-war period, the Japanese economy experienced the effects of the oil crises, a period of stable growth and now is experiencing a sluggish period. [...] (2) The response of enterprise to environmental problems With respect to the problem of the depletion of the ozone layer caused by use of Chlorofluorocarbons(CFCs) that appeared in the 1980s, the relation of cause and effect is well known. [...] 2.2 The position of the steel industry in Japan (1) Quantitative changes in Japanese steel production Quantitative changes in the production of steel in Japan have followed the same course as the development of the Japanese economy, showing a rapid expansion of production from the first part of the 1960s (See Figure 2-1). [...] The company will continue to carry on business activity from a viewpoint of worldwide environmental protection in the following ways: keeping in harmony with the ecological one of the principles of enterprise system, protecting and improving the living environment, stopping environmental pollution before it occurs, and stopping global warming and destruction of the ozone layer.