Corporate Environmental Information Disclosure: An Innovative Policy to Promote Sustainable Production

This chapter discusses corporate environmental information disclosure (CEID) as a policy option to promote SCP in developing Asia. Corporate environmental reporting and environmental performance rating programmes as CEID initiatives in the region are reviewed and discussed.

• CEID schemes in developing Asia hold promise for promoting environmental performance, but with considerable room for improvement. Accurate corporate environmental reports are scarce and environmental performance rating programmes seem to motivate significant environmental improvement more for companies with poor performance records.

• To promote sustainable production on a more significant scale, CEID policy should be recognised as a complementary policy as part of a policy mix including C&C and market based instruments, not as a standalone policy.

• CEID not only brings companies to compliance, but also helps identify the compliance level of other companies, which enables regulators to strategically select policy tools.

• Enforcement tools should be oriented to those companies which are below compliance, while market-based mechanisms should be oriented for those above compliance as incentives to make even further improvement.

Efforts should be taken in areas such as providing accurate information for stakeholders, empowering stakeholders to generate sufficient pressures/incentives, and encouraging companies to participate in this process, especially SMEs. Multi-stakeholder cooperation at national and multi-national levels is needed.