Trade, Environment and Competitiveness:

Trade, Environment & Competitiveness and competitively.

The integration of resource and environmental considerations in investment decisions, in product and process design, and in marketing, has led to a steady reduction in theuse ofresources and the production of waste per unit of output. The result can be an increase in financial and natural capital, job creation, and in productivity and profitability.

The BCNI has attempted to capture this relationship between sustainable development and competitiveness in a major policy paper.2 It has also recognized that business leaders in Canada have a responsibility to play a guiding role by adopting a series of principles to make sustainable development a reality within their companies.3 The relationship between competitiveness and environmental protection is also a theme of the report on competitiveness prepared by Professor Michael Porter for the BCNI and the Government of Canada. Simply put, Professor Porter’s thesis is that properly framed environmental regulations, which prescribe results and not methods, can spur companies to innovative new products and processes and actually enhance their competitive position. This issue, along with the overall theme of competitiveness, is the subject of ongoing work by the Business Council in the follow-up to the Porter report.

The Importance of Sound Public Policies Some see more open trade asan anathema to environmental protection. They .worry that competitive pressures will force states to opt for the lowest common denominator of environmental standards, and that developing countries will pursue unsust,ainable use of resources in a bid to earn more foreign exchange. Ultimately, however, trade and resource-sensitive competitiveness must be the means to further responsible growth in both developed and developing countries. This will provide the economic resources to move to higher environmental standards, to enforcement of those standards, and to more sustainable 30