Corporate responsibility and biodiversity conservation: challenges and opportunities for companies participating in China’s Belt and Road Initiative

Summary China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), designed to build critical infrastructure and coordinate economic growth, is the most significant development initiative in modern history. The BRI has a documented vision for sustainability, including environmental impact assessments and responsibility tenets. Despite this, a growing body of literature has found adverse effects of BRI projects on protected land and species. To understand corporate responsibility and regulations for companies participating in the BRI, we gathered information on 260 BRI companies using the Refinitiv Eikon BRI Connect database and the China Global Investment Tracker. The results revealed a significant gap in corporate responsibility reporting for biodiversity impacts, environmental restoration, environmental project financing and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 14 ‘Life below Water’ and 15 ‘Life on Land’. The modest fraction of companies that we found to report biodiversity accountability highlights the need to restructure and incentivize the reporting of environmental and biodiversity risks. The current evidence of limited adherence to responsibility measures highlights a clear opportunity to align BRI development with the BRI’s vision for sustainability, and to strengthen links for policy engagement within Chinese regulatory frameworks and international obligations at the United Nations within its SDG framework.

The Business Case for Sustainability

In this chapter, I discuss how companies address sustainability challenges. First, the chapter begins with examples of different corporate approaches to taking responsibility for sustainability. Second, I explore how companies are viewed from the stakeholder perspective, so how others outside the company view the managers’ motivations for engaging in corporate responsibility. Although most companies are still motivated by risk reduction and/or marketing in their sustainability work, this chapter will reframe the motivations into something more positive—a business opportunity. Four cases will be presented, Nike, Arthur Andersen, Volkswagen, and companies involved in the Rana Plaza tragedy, and the companies’ approaches relative to the following strategies will be discussed: reacting, defending, accommodating, and, finally, a proactive approach in which a business’s profitability is anchored in sustainability. The chapter will conclude with reflections on business models for sustainability.

Sustainable Corporate Responsibility

In this chapter, I begin by reflecting on the origins and historical context of terms related to sustainability and business, including but not limited to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Corporate Citizenship, and so on. I discuss what they mean, their purpose and limitations. I explore different, multilateral initiatives and frameworks pertaining to sustainability, in particular ones adopted by UN member states and how these apply to businesses. The role of corporate involvement and contribution, moving from a reactive to proactive sustainability engagement, is addressed. The responsibility of corporations from a philosophical perspective including key ethical schools of thoughts is also addressed.

Economic Theories and Sustainable Development

In this chapter, I provide a brief introduction of some of the key economic theories, and how and to which extent they apply to sustainable development and corporate responsibility. How economics, international trade, organizations, tax, values, banks, governments, and so on work today can all be attributed to one or more of the economic theorists introduced in this chapter. Still, these theories were developed at the time when environmental challenges such as climate change and resource depletion were not pressing issues, and therefore not considered. I conclude with an overview of the key economists and philosophers who explicitly consider sustainability and corporate responsibility in their assessment of society and business. This chapter concludes with discussing new trends and theories capturing the sustainable element of business models.