hidden_voices

Hidden Voices: The CBI, corporate lobbying and sustainabilityBox 4: The business lobbyist toolkitIn its report The Private Lives of Public Affairs, 21 the Green Alliance identifies a number ofarguments used by business lobby groups to campaign against environmental regulation:“It is excessively costly”. Lobbyists routinely exaggerate predicted costs, partly becausethey assume that after the regulation, business will carry on as before. This is known as the‘static business model’ because it ignores all future successes, such as increasing theefficiency of the business, or innovations that increase productivity or reduce costs. Inpractice, businesses innovate. They respond to regulations that increase their costs bychanging the way they operate (for example, redesigning production processes in responseto energy cost increases). Their innovation reduces their costs and can deliver other benefitsas well. To assist this the Government launched the Envirowise programme in 1994 thatencourages the sharing of best practice between UK industry to help boost theircompetitiveness through improved environmental performance and more efficient use ofresources. 22“It is against the national interest”. In this argument the lobbyist assumes the nationalinterest to be the same as that of the business lobby, so that any action seen as detrimentalto that particular sector of the business community is considered to have a negative impacton the nation.“It kills innovation”. This argument has become the business world’s knee-jerk response tomost regulation – let alone environmental regulation – yet it has been shown that creative,market-based regulation stimulates innovation. A World Wildlife Fund report on the effect ofproposed EU chemicals regulations on innovation 23 found that the regulations were likely topromote innovation by encouraging the replacement of risky and less sustainable chemicalswith safer alternatives.“Voluntary self-regulation is all that is required”. This is a popular argument used bybusiness to avoid binding regulation, and to supposedly minimise compliance costs. But theclaims by business that self-regulation works is simply not supported by the evidence. In2003, a report by the OECD concluded that voluntary agreements on environmental policytend to weaken steps towards sustainability and some even harm it (see further commentsunder ‘Self-regulation – limits of the voluntary approach’, page 22). 24Corporate lobby groups such as the CBI claim that voluntary initiatives give them theflexibility to implement polices while avoiding constraining business into a ‘one size fits all’scenario under a regulatory approach. The voluntary approach, though, ignores the fact thathaving minimum standards through regulation provides a common baseline for companies tobe compared with their peers. This does not constrain business from building on theseminimum standards, or from creating innovative responses. It also allows investors,customers, NGOs and other stakeholders to make meaningful comparisons of theperformances of different companies.2.4 The environment – ‘not our problem’It would be unfair to categorise the CBI as being particularly anti-environmental or antihumanrights but it is fair to say that it sees these issues as the responsibility of Governmentrather than business. On the question of the private sector tackling pressing environmentaland social issues, a CBI briefing states that “…if such demands are taken too far they mayserve to distract companies from their core operational responsibilities.” 25The CBI has argued that regulation can play a role in delivering environmental objectives ascan be seen from their report on environmental regulations published last year. “Businessrecognises that regulation is an important part of the mix of policies used by Government toachieve environmental goals.” 2622