In
the 1970s and early 1980s there were a series of tragic and
very public environmental disasters
arising from work. There was the nuclear catastrophe at
Chernobyl in Russia, the chemical explosion at Bhopal in India
and the chemical release at Seveso in Italy.
Major companies, particularly in the chemical sector, responded
with basic "eco-auditing".
Each audit was internal and each company did them in different
ways. They helped to identify problems in advance. Subsidiaries
of US multinationals exported the concept to Europe.
Fact about the International Chamber of Commerce |
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In
the early 1990s it became clearer that industry could not
keep fighting the environmental lobby. Industry had to show
it was doing something, especially as it played the major
role in most economies. But it needed to show what it was
doing in its own way.
The International Organization for
Standardization was asked to participate at UN Rio Earth
Summit in 1992 and create international environmental standards.
They were tasked with encouraging both trade liberalization
and environment improvements. For trade, they looked to GATT
and the newly emerging World trade Organisation. The WTO sets
rules to reduce barriers to trade, while the Rio Summit provided
the basis for international environmental conventions.
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