Corporate responsibility and biodiversity conservation: challenges and opportunities for companies participating in China’s Belt and Road Initiative

Abstract

Summary China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), designed to build critical infrastructure and coordinate economic growth, is the most significant development initiative in modern history. The BRI has a documented vision for sustainability, including environmental impact assessments and responsibility tenets. Despite this, a growing body of literature has found adverse effects of BRI projects on protected land and species. To understand corporate responsibility and regulations for companies participating in the BRI, we gathered information on 260 BRI companies using the Refinitiv Eikon BRI Connect database and the China Global Investment Tracker. The results revealed a significant gap in corporate responsibility reporting for biodiversity impacts, environmental restoration, environmental project financing and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 14 ‘Life below Water’ and 15 ‘Life on Land’. The modest fraction of companies that we found to report biodiversity accountability highlights the need to restructure and incentivize the reporting of environmental and biodiversity risks. The current evidence of limited adherence to responsibility measures highlights a clear opportunity to align BRI development with the BRI’s vision for sustainability, and to strengthen links for policy engagement within Chinese regulatory frameworks and international obligations at the United Nations within its SDG framework.

Can Environmental Information Disclosure Enhance Firm Value?—An Analysis Based on Textual Characteristics of Annual Reports

“…As primary participants in market economy activities, heavily polluting enterprises have become the main source of environmental pollutants. In 2015, the Chinese government promulgated the new "Environmental Protection Law," which, for the first time in legislative form, requires heavily polluting enterprises to disclose environmental information in their annual reports truthfully and publicly to meet the needs of external information users [2][3][4]. Thus, high-quality environmental information disclosure by listed companies in heavily polluting industries serves as a window for environmental management, demonstrating the company's attitude towards energy conservation, emission reduction, and a low-carbon economy, and is a crucial part of the company's implementation of the carbon neutrality plan [5,6].…”

Biodiversity management approaches in small and innovative businesses: insights from asystems thinkingperspective

“…If one is unable to communicate and widely disseminates the efforts made by actors in the supply chain to promote and establish a sustainable relationship with the ecosystem while producing a quality product, everything becomes more complicated and often economically unsustainable over time (Beck-O’Brien and Bringezu, 2021; Bohnett et al , 2022):…”

“…Only with the important systematic activity of sharing production/selling and communications strategies with the various stakeholders (wheat producers, flour suppliers, consumers, environmental associations, media, etc.) is it possible to consider a level of economic sustainability that can guarantee environmental sustainability or the conservation of biodiversity (Beck-O’Brien and Bringezu, 2021; Bohnett et al , 2022).…”

“…Finally, recent studies have analyzed the tools available to companies to monitor and assess the biodiversity performance of their products and found shortcomings in the criteria for biodiversity or that the criteria are weak in certification and standards as well as corporate accounting and reporting systems (Beck-O’Brien and Bringezu, 2021). These studies have also revealed a significant gap in the corporate responsibility reporting on biodiversity impacts and environmental restoration, thereby highlighting the need to restructure and incentivize the reporting on environmental risks and biodiversity (Bohnett et al , 2022). Furthermore, these recent studies investigate the extent to which organizations account for responsibility for biodiversity; thus, highlighting responsibility with respect to species extinction is essential in postCOVID-19 reporting, as the lack of valorization, promotion and investment in biodiversity is considered to be one of the main causes of the COVID-19 crisis (Hassan et al , 2022).…”

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