Disclosure and Corporate Social and Environmental Performance: Competitiveness and Enterprise in a Broader Social Frame

Abstract

Companies are increasingly subject to pressure from market and civil society actors with regard to their social and environmental performance. These pressures, often referred to as being part of a process of “civil regulation”, offer some prospect of advancing the cause of corporate social responsibility, but without the need to rely on altruism on the one hand, or to have recourse to problematic governance reforms on the other. Viewed from the perspective of regulatory theory, while its practical significance should not be exaggerated, it is arguable that civil regulation might be able to compensate for some of the limitations of conventional regulatory techniques. A pre-requisite for effective civil regulation is, however, the public availability of reasonably complete, reliable information about companies' social and environmental impacts. This article examines the merits of civil regulation as a form of social control of business, and considers the approach to social and environmental disclosure that might best facilitate it.