Yale-WWF_final

game. There are prior examples of Chinese companies that satisfactorily relocated an entirecommunity and cleaned up environmental damages wrought by the previous company.4. Social and Environmental Risk Management: Publicpolicy or corporate social responsibility?As such, during the workshop there were considerable debates over the relationship betweeneconomic development and environmental protection, and the role of the governmentagencies, TNCs, and the international community in the creation and implementation ofmechanisms to improve the social and environmental performance and outcome ofinvestment.4.1. Environment or economy? Governmental Policy or CorporateSocial Responsibility (CSR)?With regard to the first debate, panelists offered two main perspectives.Perspective 1:The economic and environmental goals are not exclusive to each other. For example, TNCs’violation of the environmental standards can cause social unrest and political dispute. Theincreased risk might deter potential financiers from investing in those oversea projects.Therefore, regulating companies’ environmental practice will reduce the financial risk,achieving both environmental and economic goals.In order to encourage the synergy of the economy and environment, policy interventionshould happen on multiple levels at the same time. One participant proposes that thegovernments and the companies should actively involve in managing environmental risks bysetting goals, learning from their international peers, and improving transparency of decisionmakingprocess.Perspective 2:Environmental protection will need to catch up with economic development. In China, theeconomy and environment are two runners with the economy way ahead of the environment.China has put great efforts in developing its economy in the past 30 years. But the environmentis a relatively new issue compared with the economy. The environmental laws and publicawareness of the environment are still at their early developing stage.In order to reduce the gap between economic and environmental development, differentopinions exist as to who is the most important actor. Some identify the central state as the keyactor to initiate the change. In fact the Chinese state has established a series of measures toincorporate environmental protection into broader national planning and promote the idea ofecological civilization.5