XIX ISA World Congress of Sociology (July 15-21, 2018)

463

Multinational Corporations and the Environment

RC24 Environment and Society (host committee)

Language: English

The accelerated globalization of the economy after 1980 was accompanied by a major environmental onslaught– a dramatic increase in Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG), resource depletion, species extinction, pollution of air, land and water. The most significant agents in this process were the multinational companies, who both increased in number and expanded globally. The number of multinational companies increased from 7,000 in 1975 to 38,000 parent companies, with 207,000 subsidiaries, in 2000. Many corporations moved their production to developing countries during this period because environmental laws were weaker and labour was cheaper. Since 2,000 the increasing power and lobbying by corporations in industrialized countries has weakened environmental regulations, a notable example being the exclusion of the oil and gas industries from US Environmental Protection Agency regulations in 2005. This panel invites papers that explore the characteristics or case studies of the environmental impacts of multinational corporations in industrialized and emerging economies.