Abstract

Environmental consciousness is maintaining its development through the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Kyoto Protocol, environmental policies of the European Union and UN Global Compact. While companies operate responsibly and sustain their practices supporting the society on environmental issues, with these principles the UN attempts that companies add value to people, societies and the planet along with adding value to their own financial resources. The concept of Environmental Corporate Social Responsibility (ECSR) is approached multi-dimensionally in six dimensions according to these two frames; as a set of corporate initiatives aimed at mitigating a firm’s impact on the natural environment and as a concept about companies voluntarily integrating environmental concerns in their business operations and in their interaction with their stakeholders, respectively. This study seeks answers in three dimensions, represents environmental pressure, voluntary norms and corporate pressure, to the question whether the UN Global Compact, which companies support voluntarily due to their environmental responsibilities, leads to isomorphism. The purpose of the study is to present a corporate model based on corporate and international environment policies to reveal the attitude and adopted policies regarding environmental consciousness of companies supporting the Compact in order to identify their environmental protection perspective and to activate environment control. The space of the research is member companies of United Nations Global Compact in Turkey. The sample was selected among member companies of the Global Compact operating in Turkey. The research is designed in descriptive and correlational scanning models. Multiple linear regression test is used to test hypotheses with normal distribution results of variables and to develop the model in order to achieve the research aim and analyze the designed model. Companies guarantee that they will fulfil their environmental responsibilities on their own initiative with the UNGC, although it is founded out that self- environmental awareness and initiatives are insufficient for institutions to keep effective and sustainable environmental auditing.

Key Words

Business management, institutionalism, environmental awareness, environmental policies, sustainability.