Law, Society, and Industrial Justice.

As public concern over greenwashing has grown in the last two decades, academic research has increased correspondingly, and there is now a substantial body of research addressing issues related to greenwashing. In this paper, we therefore review and analyze greenwashing research, to provide an evaluation of trends and progress in the field and a synthesis of the empirical and conceptual results presented in existing studies. Our main finding leading to our theory contribution is the criticism raised in greenwashing research that the entirely voluntary CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) approach facilitates the diffusion of greenwashing. The voluntary idea of CSR is still prevalent in the CSR literature and appears to be a grey-zone that creates space for misleading ‘green’ communication. Consequently, we propose that greenwashing could be better prevented with a combination of voluntary and mandatory aspects. The new paradigm should promote creative and effective corporate CSR initiatives, while at the same time design the limits and the rules for their accomplishments and communication, as firms would risk breaching legislation when overstretching CSR messages.

/pdf/grey-zone-in-greenwash-out-a-review-of-greenwashing-research-3on0orb6qb.pdf

Grey zone in – greenwash out. A review of greenwashing research and implications for the voluntary-mandatory transition of CSR

The absence of consensus on what should constitute Corporate Social Responsibility has inhibited consistent CSR legislation around the world. This paper poses a fundamental question on what should constitute CSR and what should be the nature of CSR regulation? By constructing the boundaries of CSR, the paper offers scope for consistently developing CSR regulation around the world. It construes CSR as consisting of business relation and impact relation, and demonstrates that these are intertwined with legal responsibilities of business and, consequentially, with accountability. It accomplishes this by establishing the obligatory nature of responsibilities using the lens of ethical and legal jurisprudence. This new approach towards CSR recasts it as an obligatory responsibility that is linked to accountability. Furthermore, the framework provides a foundation for consistent development of CSR regulation across different countries that can lead to effective discharge of corporates’ social responsibilities.

/pdf/corporate-social-responsibility-and-accountability-a-new-46c0boy1zv.pdf

Corporate social responsibility and accountability: a new theoretical foundation for regulating CSR

The Rise of the Right to Know: Politics and the Culture of Transparency, 1945–1975

Since 2016, the European context has been characterised by the introduction of the Directive 95/2014/EU on mandatory non-financial reporting. The Directive has been transposed in the Italian context through the Legislative Decree 254/2016. However, following evidence previously collected from other jurisdictions, a high degree of scepticism by academics still characterises the debate on the effectiveness of this form of regulation. In fact, the literature highlights that the effects of a mandatory approach to non-financial reporting are limited to an increase in the annual quantity of information provided and not by an effective organizational change. Therefore, the contribution of our paper is twofold: a gap analysis between the overall degree of non-financial reporting quality between the years 2015 and 2017 and an empirical analysis, factors of which have impacted on the quality of non-financial reports prepared in 2017.

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/1/92/pdf

The Non-Financial Reporting Harmonization in Europe: Evolutionary Pathways Related to the Transposition of the Directive 95/2014/EU within the Italian Context

Although the literature on corporate social responsibility (CSR) has discussed the scope and meaning of CSR extensively, confusion still exists regarding how to define the concept. One controversial issue deals with the changing legal status of CSR (i.e., the voluntary vs. mandatory nature of the concept). Based on a review of CSR definitions and meta-studies on CSR definitions, we find that the majority of definitions leans toward voluntary CSR. However, some recent regulatory amendments toward mandatory CSR have called into question the established idea of CSR as merely a managerial tool of self-regulation. In this paper, we juxtapose the evolution of CSR in India against the scholarly literature discussing voluntary-versus-mandatory CSR to understand the recent shift toward a new conceptualization of CSR as a form of co-regulation that includes elements of both voluntary and mandatory regulation. The Indian Companies Act 2013 (Section 135) is a remarkable example in that it replaced an older version from 1956, taking a bold step toward the integration of voluntary and mandatory aspects in the application of CSR. We present practical implications of the Indian case for businesses and discuss implications for CSR theory development; we particularly consider the evolution of the business and society relationship from a voluntary soft law approach to CSR to an increasingly hard law approach and transitory hybrid forms in-between like soft–hard law and hard–soft law.

Are We Moving Beyond Voluntary CSR? Exploring Theoretical and Managerial Implications of Mandatory CSR Resulting from the New Indian Companies Act

Transparency is nowadays at the top of the agenda for most governments. The number of countries that have adopted a law on access to administrative documents is on the rise. Access to information l...

/pdf/access-to-information-in-benin-a-case-study-4eg885ywth.pdf

Access to information in Benin: a case study:

The decade 2010-2019 has seen 62 new countries enacting data privacy laws, more than in any previous decade, giving a total of 142 countries with such laws by the end of 2019.

This paper provides a graph illustrating that, if the current trajectory of enactment of new data privacy laws continues, then by the end of the 2020s there will be over 200 countries (including self-governing territories) with data privacy laws. What started as a novelty in one German State (Hesse) in 1970 will have covered the globe with its influence in sixty years.

Since publication of the most recent Global Tables of Data Privacy Laws in January 2019 (see https://ssrn.com/abstract=3380794) which included 132 countries with such laws, a further ten laws have been enacted or located. They include six from Africa, three from Central Asia, and one from the Caribbean, now numbered #133 to #142. The extent of apparent GDPR influences is indicated.

Brief descriptions of each of these ten laws are given in the paper. With three new laws, all Central Asian countries except Mongolia now have data privacy laws, because Kazakhstan and Kyrzygstan already have such laws. Enactments in six more African countries brings the total number with data privacy laws to 31 of the 55 African Union members.

2020 Ends a Decade of 62 New Data Privacy Laws

By early 2017, the number of countries with data privacy laws had risen to 120. A year later, this had increased to 124 countries. This paper gives details of these new laws - from the Cayman Islands, and from three West African countries (Mauritania, Niger, and Guinea-Conakry) and of their relationships to both international and regional data privacy standards, with particular reference to the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). 
Similar details are given for examples of laws outside Europe which have been revised (Mauritius), some new Bills (Thailand). 
All of these laws go beyond the ‘1st generation’ OECD Guidelines, and include not only the ‘2nd generation’ ‘European’ standards associated with the 1995 EU Directive, but also to a surprising extent the ‘3rd generation’ higher standards found in 2016 EU GDPR, even before it comes into force.

Bertil Cottier

Papers

Are We Moving Beyond Voluntary CSR? Exploring Theoretical and Managerial Implications of Mandatory CSR Resulting from the New Indian Companies Act

Access to information in Benin: a case study:

2020 Ends a Decade of 62 New Data Privacy Laws

Data Privacy Laws and Bills: Growth in Africa, GDPR Influence

International and regional commitments in African data privacy laws: A comparative analysis