Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-04-02-Speech-4-026"
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"en.20090402.6.4-026"2
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"Mr President, can I support my colleague, Linda McAvan, and congratulate the members of the Committee on the Environment for bringing forward this report? As Parliament’s rapporteur on corporate social responsibility I wanted to make a contribution to this debate by putting the debate on Ecolabelling and EMAS, in terms of reporting by companies, into the wider context of what we are trying to do on corporate responsibility and accountability, and in particular to address the issue of whether voluntary schemes, as against statutory schemes, are the right way forward and whether we should have Europe-focused schemes or a global approach.
The problem from a corporate responsibility point of view is that a proliferation of voluntary schemes can be more costly and less clear, and can actually lead to competition that is wasteful for businesses, consumers and, indeed, for all stakeholders. There is, of course, a temptation for some companies to use the least onerous and least costly – but also least effective – tool.
The problem of voluntarism may also be that it is just not going to be enough in terms of climate change today. I was struck, when the Climate Change Bill went through the domestic Parliament in my own Member State, the United Kingdom, by how the British employers’ federation, the CBI, actually said it wanted binding statutory reporting on climate change by business. Given what we are saying in the European Union about what needs to happen on climate change, the question is whether voluntarism will be enough, even with the changes we are agreeing in this report.
Lastly, the issue of global versus European. There are 4 000 companies in EMAS and 35 000 in ISO 14001. Is this because ISO is less onerous, or is it because our companies work in global – and not just European – markets and want a global approach?
I invite the Commission not simply to promote and apply EMAS, which I want to be successful, but also to look outward to establishing and strengthening global initiatives on carbon emission reporting by companies and other aspects of corporate responsibility, so that we get strong global mechanisms and that we then can apply and promote them on our own continent. Let us try both tracks."@en1
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