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Corporate Greening of Foreign Transnationals in Singapore
Author(s) -
Perry Martin,
Singh Sanjeev
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
singapore journal of tropical geography
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.538
H-Index - 42
eISSN - 1467-9493
pISSN - 0129-7619
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9493.00093
Subject(s) - business , corporate social responsibility , government (linguistics) , dominance (genetics) , turnover , action (physics) , foreign direct investment , environmentalism , corporate action , accounting , corporate governance , public relations , political science , economics , finance , management , politics , shareholder , linguistics , biochemistry , chemistry , law , gene , philosophy , physics , quantum mechanics
The environmental performance of transnational corporations (TNCs) may need to be updated to include evidence of increased corporate environmental responsibility. This is a challenge to geographical perspectives that have been critical of the environmental performance of TNCs. The paper reports the findings of a survey of TNCs with branches in Singapore. Using the survey evidence, TNCs are classified according to their degree of participation in a range of voluntary environmental initiatives. According to the classification, there is a similar proportion of low and high performers but a dominance of medium level activity that can involve little organisational change. A significant association between organisational size and environmental activity is found. Respondents most frequently report that corporate environmental standards motivate environmental action in Singapore. Overall the survey evidence indicates that few TNCs are significantly changing their environmental behaviour. The absence of citizen, NGO and government pressure on TNCs is reducing the extent of voluntary environmental action in Singapore and expectations of widespread corporate greening overlook organisational differences in their opportunity to benefit from investment in environmental management. It is concluded that voluntary corporate environmentalism does not reduce the need for government regulation.