Climate change justice and corporate responsibility

Abstract

Analysing the mining industry's evolving approach to corporate responsibility and human rights sheds light on some of the opportunities and challenges for corporations to play a role in promoting climate change justice. A focus on human rights can create tensions with the corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes and policies, which are commonly discursively framed as being voluntary. Corporate efforts to respond to critics by adopting human rights policies will be viewed with scepticism without increased standardisation in reporting, and the success of these initiatives will depend on the quality of a firm's engagement with communities to address local concerns aside from greenhouse gas emissions. Strong state regulation, enforcement and democratic politics must accompany the growing panoply of guidelines, principles, codes of conduct and standards to ensure the promotion of human rights.

Notes

1 Katy Gardner, ‘Elusive Partnerships: Gas Extraction and CSR in Bangladesh’ (2012) 37 Resources Policy 168; Dinah Rajak, In Good Company: An Anatomy of Corporate Social Responsibility (Stanford University Press 2011); Marina Welker, Enacting the Corporation: An American Mining Firm in Post-Authoritarian Indonesia (University of California Press 2014).

2 The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is an international not-for-profit organisation, based in the Netherlands, whose Sustainability Reporting Framework has been widely adopted by over 7,500 organisations, including major mining, oil and gas companies. The framework aims to standardise how organisations measure and report their environmental, social and governance practices. While the framework facilitates comparisons among companies, it has been critiqued by academics for focusing on micro-ethics (such as the behaviour of individual firms or the outcomes of a company's initiatives) at the expense of much broader, systemic concerns about environmental and social inequalities. See Alberto Fonseca, Mary Louise McAllister and Patricia Fitzpatrick, ‘Sustainability Reporting among Mining Corporations: A Constructive Critique of the GRI Approach’ (2014) 84 Journal of Cleaner Production 70.

3 International Bar Association, Achieving Justice and Human Rights in an Era of Climate Disruption, Climate Change Justice and Human Rights Task Force Report (International Bar Association 2014) 148.

4 Gavin Hilson, ‘Corporate Social Responsibility in the Extractive Industries: Experiences from Developing Countries’ (2012) 37 Resources Policy 131, 132.

5 K Aaron, ‘New Corporate Social Responsibility Models for Oil Companies in Nigeria's Delta Region: What Challenges for Sustainability?’ (2012) 12 Progress in Development Studies 259; Catherine Coumans, ‘Occupying Spaces Created by Conflict: Anthropologists, Development NGOs, Responsible Investment, and Mining’ (2011) 52(S3) Current Anthropology S29; Emma Gilberthorpe and Glenn Banks, ‘Development on Whose Terms? CSR Discourse and Social Realities in Papua New Guinea's Extractive Industries Sector’ (2012) 37 Resources Policy 185; Dinah Rajak, In Good Company: An Anatomy of Corporate Social Responsibility (Stanford University Press 2011).

6 See David Szablowski, Transnational Law and Local Struggles: Mining Communities and the World Bank (Hart Publishing 2007); Stuart Kirsch, Mining Capitalism: The Relationship between Corporations and Their Critics (University of California Press 2014); Catherine Coumans, ‘Occupying Spaces Created by Conflict: Anthropologists, Development NGOs, Responsible Investment, and Mining’ (2011) 52(S3) Current Anthropology S29; Chris Ballard and Glenn Banks, ‘Resource Wars: The Anthropology of Mining’ (2003) 32 Annual Review of Anthropology 287.

7 See www.forbes.com:sites:simonmontlake:2012:01:26:cave-in-freeport-mcmoran, last accessed 17 December 2015.

8 See Deanna Kemp and others, ‘Mining, Water and Human Rights: Making the Connection’ (2010) 18 Journal of Cleaner Production 1553. The Chinese companies that represent a briskly growing share of mining multinationals operating in the developing world are perceived as being slow or entirely resistant to acknowledge human rights in particular and corporate social responsibility in general. See Li-Wen Lin, ‘Corporate Social Responsibility in China: Window Dressing or Structural Change’ (2010) 28 Berkeley J Int'l L 64.

9 See www.barrick.com/responsibility/human-rights/, last accessed 17 December 2015 and www.hrw.org/news/2011/02/01/papua-new-guinea-serious-abuses-barrick-gold-mine, last accessed 17 December 2015.

10 See www.barrick.com/files/governance/Barrick-Human-Rights-Policy.pdf, last accessed 17 December 2015.

11 J Frynas, ‘Corporate Social Responsibility in the Oil and Gas Sector’ (2009) 2 Journal of World Energy Law & Business 178.

12 Barrick Gold Corporation, ‘Responsibility – Environment – Energy Use & Climate Change’ www.barrick.com/responsibility/environment/energy-climate-change/, last accessed 17 December 2015.

13 Michael Porter and Mark Kramer, ‘Creating Shared Value’ (2011) 89(1/2) Harvard Business Review 62.

14 Deanna Kemp and others, ‘Mining, Water and Human Rights: Making the Connection’ (2010) 18 Journal of Cleaner Production 1553.

15 International Bar Association (n 3 above) 149.

16 John Vidal, ‘Climate Change Will Hit Poor Countries Hardest, Study Shows’ The Guardian (London, 27 September 2013) www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/sep/27/climate-change-poor-countries-ipcc, last accessed 17 December 2015.

17 Andrew Barry, Material Politics: Disputes Along the Pipeline (Wiley 2013) 106.

18 Ibid, 182.