Bausteine für eine 'umweltgerechte Unternehmensführung'

In May 2018, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution which has paved the way for negotiations towards a “Global Pact for the Environment”. According to Article 2 of the Preliminary Draft of this Global Pact (2017) “Every [...] person, natural or legal, public or private, has the duty to take care of the environment. To this end, everyone contributes at their own levels to the [...] protection [...] of the integrity of the earth's ecosystem.” This thesis argues for a principle of “environmentally sound corporate governance”. The foundation of this principle can be derived from international, EU and German environmental law. The author identifies six building blocks for pursuing such governance: (1) the inclusion of “environmentalism” as a corporate objective; (2) environmental education; (3) an appropriate business organisation; (4) the use of environmental management systems; (5) the assessment of environmental effects; and (6) corporate environmental reporting.