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This chapter provides a legal and theoretical overview of environmental PPMs articulated in private standards. It seeks to expand the debate about environmental PPMs, elucidating important dimensions to the issue from the perspective of global governance and international trade law. One of the arguments advanced in this chapter is that a comprehensive analysis of environmental PPMs should consider not only their role in what is regarded as trade barriers (governmental and market driven) but also their significance in global objectives such as the transition towards a green economy and sustainable patterns of consumption and production.

This chapter is based on an extensive literature review and doctrinal legal research.

This research shows that environmental PPMs represent a key issue in the context of the trade and environment relationship. For decades such measures have been thought of as being trade distortive and thus incompatible with WTO law. Although it seems clear now that they are not unlawful per se, their legal status remains unsettled. PPMs can be regarded as regulatory choices associated with a wide range of environmental concerns. However, in trade disputes, challenged measures involving policy objectives addressing production issues in the conservation of natural resources tend to focus on fishing/harvesting techniques. On the other hand, an important goal of Global Environmental Governance (GEG) is to incentivise sustainable consumption and production in order to achieve the transition to a green economy. In this sense, it can be argued that what are generally denominated as ‘PPMs’ in the WTO terminology can alternatively be regarded ‘SCPs’ in the language of environmental governance. Environmental PPMs are not only limited to state-based measures, such as import bans, tariff preferences, and governmental labelling schemes. Environmental PPMs may also amount to good corporate practices towards environmental protection and provide the rationale for numerous private environmental standards.

Most academic attention afforded to environmental-PPMs has focused on their impacts on trade or their legality under WTO law. Although legal scholars have already referred to the significance of such measures in the context of environmental governance, this issue has remained almost entirely unexplored. This chapter seeks to fill the gap in the literature in this regard. In particular, it addresses the relevance of environmental PPMs in the context of decentralised governance initiatives such as the UN Global Compact and private environmental standards.

Overall, this chapter assists in the understanding of the significance of environmental PPMs in the context of private environmental standards and other governance initiatives involving goals related to sustainable consumption and production. This chapter adds to the existing body of literature on the subject of PPMs in international trade and environmental governance.

This paper aims to reflect on the future of sustainability reporting standards by examining the current practical initiatives and the Global Reporting Initiative’s (GRI) position in the arena of non-financial and sustainability reporting and identifies avenues for future research.

A critical reflection and analysis of research on the GRI’s achievements and the influence of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Foundation’s initiative to develop global sustainability reporting standards.

The GRI has a dominant position in sustainability reporting standard-setting related to the provision of information about the influence of reporting organisations on society and the natural environment. The IFRS Foundation’s initiative to enter the sustainability reporting standard-setting arena, although from the perspective of providing information to investors regarding the influence of society and the environment on the reporting organisation, is an attempt to solidify its own position as the reporting standard setter of choice, not only for financial reporting but for all reporting standards. However, despite its aim to differentiate its role from the GRI by leveraging the financial-oriented ideological side of double materiality, we argue that the IFRS is unlikely to harm the GRI’s global position in producing multi-stakeholder standards for sustainability reporting and accountability. This differentiated position is facilitated by the different sources of legitimacy the GRI and IFRS rely on.

The paper identifies future research opportunities.

Due to the recent initiatives for creating new sustainability reporting standard-setters, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper offers one of the first critical reflections on the past and the likely future of the GRI and its sustainability reporting standards. The paper also identifies several new avenues for future research.

In this chapter, I consider the dilemmas that global leaders face when working in a business environment where local laws and business practices differ from company standards. I describe some of the ethical dilemmas a manager might face when dealing with people inside and outside the company. Then I explain how integrity is essential in managing these dilemmas successfully.

This paper presents an analytical framework to understand the complex CSR accountability standard architecture, studying the CSR standardization cycle through the organizational studies perspective. It has two main aims: to discuss the theoretical approach to CSR governance, proposing a matrix to classify international CSR accountability standards; and to study the CSR multi-industry standardization cycle (setting and design, diffusion and implementation), creating an analytical framework to understand the innovative dynamics adopted through CSR standard-setting.

The paper is based on empirical research on global CSR multi-industry standards and the emergence of a regulatory dynamic based on competition-collaboration. The paper's arguments stem from a case study of the Global Reporting Initiative and its inter-linkage and convergence with the UN Global Compact and ISO 26000. The author analyzes this case based on the global governance and institutional dynamics of regulation research.

Based on the study of CSR standards, the paper presents an analytical framework with various elements to analyze CSR accountability standards: scope, type of actors, performance type and mechanisms and type of legitimacy and monitoring strategies. Second, the paper advances the study of emerging inter-linkages between GRI, UNGC and ISO 26000 and analyzes the emergence of a meta-standardization process generated by the competition-collaboration dynamic.

Further research is needed to focus on the role of agency and different stakeholders on the meta-standardization process. Other research has to focus on the institutional logic and the multi-level analysis of the convergence between CSR standards and the self-regulation advanced process. In this respect, this research serves to demonstrate the leading innovative role adopted by private actors (mostly companies) in developing private standard setting for global governance.

The value of this paper is its analysis of the main convergence dynamic adopted by the most popular, global-scope CSR multi-industry standards, GRI, UNGC and ISO 26000. The findings show how this standardization cycle helps a new collaborative governance dynamic to emerge based on the adoption of private standard-setting. The paper is also useful for practitioners, helping them understand the growing convergence among CSR multi-industry standards, and how the convergence of sustainability reporting processes is advancing towards the integration and drafting of homogeneous guidelines with the prevalence of the GRI model.

This chapter outlines incorporation of voluntary environmental accounting standards into national law as evidenced by the Scandinavian experience. In illustrating such hardening of soft law approaches it highlights difficulties national authorities face when attempting to regulate globalised commercial entities with extra-territorial activities. Adoption at national level of these standards into legally binding obligations illustrates convergence of global governance standards even where there is no central authority or designed codification.

Doctrinal legal research and literature review. To illustrate the incorporation of voluntary standards at a national level, Scandinavian examples (Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland) were chosen – frequently upheld as best practice in requiring the reporting of environmental information financial reports.

The research shows that the most proactive national authorities in this regard are endorsing certain voluntary standards and rewarding their use with reduced regulatory burden. I first outline certain voluntary environmental standards and then illustrate adoption of these standards into legally binding frameworks.

The main limitation was difficulty in finding English language versions of some national regulations.

This chapter seeks to illustrate a normativisation of soft law frameworks into legally binding national obligations. Viewed through the phenomenon of Global Administrative Law it would seem evident that national authorities are willing to adopt various international voluntary standards to regulate the increasingly globalised actions of companies.

Voluntary standards and the various reporting methods of non-financial information is an extremely broad regulatory sphere with decentralised regulation and parallel regulatory frameworks. This chapter, in illustrating the convergence of environmental governance standards through normativisation of previously voluntary standards, will assist the reader in attaining an overview of the extent of this regulatory convergence.

Motivated by the growing and urgent demands for a unified set of internationally accepted, and high-quality environmental, social and governance (hereafter ESG) disclosure standards, this exploratory study aims to propose a roadmap for setting out the proper technical groundwork for global ESG disclosure standards.

An exploratory study is conducted to gain initial understanding and insights into establishing a worldwide set of standards for reporting on sustainability, as this topic has not been extensively studied. This study examines the viewpoints of various stakeholders, including sustainability practitioners, academics and organizations focused on ESG issues, to generate knowledge that is more solid than knowledge produced when one group of stakeholders work alone.

The results revealed that there is an ongoing and incompatible debate regarding several conceptual and practical challenges for setting a unified set of ESG disclosure standards.

The study results provide multidimensional insights for regulatory parties and standard-setters to develop a high-quality package of global ESG reporting standards. This, in turn, enables different groups of stakeholders to understand the firm’s impact on the environment, society and economy.

Research into this timely and relevant global issue is considered an appealing area of study and deserves significant attention. Thereby, working on this topic merits remarkable attention. Furthermore, this exploratory article provides valuable and informative suggestions for creating a unified and high-quality set of internationally accepted sustainability reporting standards.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how the shrimp aquaculture export industry in Vietnam can achieve further development in the highly competitive global market particularly in the context of complying with food safety standards set by the markets.

This paper applies two conceptual approaches, local institutions and global value chains. The concept of global value chains helps this paper to understand what extent the external pressures are placed on the industry while the concept of local institutions effectively examines its responses to the external pressures. Applying this conceptual framework this paper examines an empirical case analysing secondary data and literature.

Market requirements on food safety are brought by global buyers through the global value chains governance structure to the local institutional function. It includes local buyer-supplier relationship within the industrial cluster, industrial policy and business institutions, although it is less likely to address the local backwards suppliers to improve the industrial capability of food safety standard compliance.

This paper has a research limitation due to the prioritised research scope that critically examines potential pathway for further development of Vietnamese shrimp aquaculture export industry. Therefore, it needs further comparative in-depth analysis with more vertically organised industrial structure performed by the countries such as Thailand.

The originality of this paper is to critically examine the conceptual limitation of global value chains approach in the context of food safety standard compliance issue, which is likely to be originated in local backward suppliers by applying a complementary concept, local institutions.

The chapter aims to clarify the relationship between corporate governance structure and corporate subscription to Global Compact standards. Part one of the chapter looks at the relationship between different models of board governance and active Global Compact participation by publicly listed companies. Part two of the chapter examines a number of external mechanisms aimed at bringing corporate behavior in line with Global Compact principles, and argues that there is a mutually reinforcing relationship between internal governance structures and external provisions aimed at influencing corporate behavior.

Part one of the chapter uses an independent T-test to compare the average (mean) proportion of publicly listed companies from unitary board countries with an active Global Compact Communication on Progress status with the average proportion of publicly listed companies from two-tier/hybrid corporate governance systems listed as active Global Compact participants. Part two of the chapter uses primary and secondary sources to examine external mechanisms operating across national borders aimed at influencing corporate behavior.

The chapter finds that a higher proportion of public companies from countries with two-tier/hybrid corporate governance structures have become active Global Compact participants compared to public companies from legal systems with unitary board corporate governance structures. Part two of the chapter examines the potentially mutually reinforcing relationship between internal governance structures and external mechanisms for modifying corporate behavior.

While external codes and standards such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises appear to be influencing corporate behavior worldwide, quantitative data confirming and recording the extent and nature of this influence (if any) remains limited.

The chapter provides useful insights for policy makers and corporate leaders into the relationship between internal corporate governance structures and external codes, standards and guidelines aimed at influencing corporate behavior.

This chapter provides original insights into whether and how internal governance structures can complement and reinforce social standards regarding global corporate citizenship, and the legal guidelines reflecting those standards.

This paper aims to propose a legal characterisation of the recent proliferation, across the broad range of global environmental good governance initiatives and practices, of a diverse mix of regulatory environmental standards, many of which are informal in origin insofar as they are neither State-driven nor State-centred. It examines the novel conception of legal order posited by Twinning and Walker, to determine whether it encompasses the myriad rules and standards emerging in the field of environmental governance.

Surveying the rapidly developing montage of formal and informal rules and standards associated with global environmental governance, this paper uses the analytical framework provided by scholars of “global administrative law” to reconcile the complementary roles of formal and informal sources of legal rules, and to explain their increasing convergence around a set of good governance principles and standards commonly used in national administrative law systems.

The paper concludes that the emerging regulatory framework for global environmental governance comprises an almost endless variety of forms of novel transnational regulatory activity, many succeeding in having a profound impact on environmental outcomes. Yet all appear to be founded upon and guided by a discrete set of good governance standards and principles of an administrative law character – including transparency, participation, legality, rationality, proportionality, reviewability and accountability – which serve to enhance the credibility and legitimacy of each regulatory mechanism.

It appears that new and informal forms of environmental regulatory activity enjoy a complex symbiotic relationship with formal systems of environmental law. In addition to filling lacunae and addressing deficiencies in such systems, owing, for example, to the transnational character of much of today’s trade, informal regulatory systems are increasingly influencing the evolution of formal legal frameworks and, in so doing, are improving the responsiveness, flexibility and accessibility of this new environmental “legal order”.

At a practical level, viewing the wide range of new forms of environmental regulatory activity through the prism of global administrative law (or global environmental law) brings unity to this diverse field and, in so doing, makes available to all the actors involved in this “community of practice” a wealth of established practice and principle which can help to inform the elaboration and interpretation of rules and standards of environmental governance through a process of cross fertilisation of ideas and approaches.

Recognition of the legal character and significant role of the wide range of novel forms of environmental regulatory activity lends further credibility and legitimacy to such mechanisms, which often comprise the only truly relevant and applicable environmental controls or truly accessible mode of redress and accountability. The challenges of realising sustainability are immense and, as one leading commentator has noted, “all normative means are useful to this end”.

This paper attempts to characterise the legal nature of the range of novel forms of environmental regulation which (can) play such an important role in modifying the behaviour of many of the key environmental actors globally – actors who have largely been unaffected by more formal legal frameworks. For this reason, it seeks to encourage a fundamental shift in the way we think about environmental law and legal authority.

To identify points of similarity and differences of emphasis between internalisation theory and global value chain (GVC) theory and to highlight how the latter’s particular approach is useful in analysing the impact of private sustainability standards.

Review of some key texts and reviews of internalisation theory combined with author’s reflections on GVC theory based on his contributions to its development.

GVC theory shares much common ground with the internalisation theory of international business, but their different starting points lead to different strengths and weaknesses. Internalisation theory is strong on the logic of decisions by transnational companies to internalise or externalise their activities. GVC theory is strongest in its consideration of how and why companies manage externalised activities in different ways, and its theory of network governance focuses on how governance challenges change in response to market requirements, shifts in the break point between enterprises, the role of codification in simplifying governance and the control of activities across multiple links in value chains. These factors explain how private and public–private standards in the field of sustainability are both a response to new external demands on value chains and, simultaneously, a means of reducing the complexity of governance challenges that such demands create.

Few attempts have been made to compare the two theories, and value chain theorists have not engaged with the international business literature. The chapter highlights the scope for a continuing and more systematic comparison of the two literatures.