Cleaning up Greenwash: Corporate Environmental Crime and the Crisis of Capitalism

Angus Nurse

doi:10.5771/9781793600554

Summary

A 2022 Choice Reviews Outstanding Academic Title

Through a green criminological perspective, Angus Nurse examines the contemporary reality of corporate environmental crime and illegal activities that have become normalized within many major corporations. Arguably this is an inevitable consequence of a corporate culture that prioritizes profits and the smooth operation of market activities over environmental concerns coupled with the increased political power of major corporations that can act almost with impunity and where problems do occur, can literally buy itself out of trouble. These same corporations are broadly perceived as being responsible actors. However, Nurse argues that corporate environmental offending is often deliberate and that corporations understand that they will often be allowed to continue with polluting and non-compliant behavior because the likely enforcement responses are fines and settlements rather than criminal prosecution. Using several case studies, Nurse explores biopiracy and the rights of indigenous peoples, the behavior of oil companies in African states, the regulation of corporate social responsibility and corporate environmental responsibility, an analysis of contemporary environmental legislation and the prosecution of environmental harm, and state-corporate crime and air pollution. Dealing with these problems requires a wider notion of crime and wrongdoing that directly engages with the types of environmental offending that represent a threat to human populations and non-human nature irrespective of whether these are defined as crime by justice systems.

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Bibliographic data

Edition: 1/2022
Copyright Year: 2022
ISBN-Print: 978-1-7936-0054-7
ISBN-Online: 978-1-7936-0055-4
Publisher: Lexington, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 182
Product Type: Monograph

1. Contents No access
2. Acknowledgments No access
3. Introduction No access
4. List of Abbreviations No access
Defining Corporate Environmental Crime No access Pages 1 - 16
Critical Perspectives on Environmental Crime, Green Criminology, and Corporate Environmental Offending No access Pages 17 - 32
The Causes of Corporate Environmental Crime and Criminality No access Pages 33 - 48
Cleaning Up Greenwash No access Pages 49 - 62
Creative Compliance, Constructive Compliance No access Pages 63 - 76
Corporate Exploitation of Natural Resources No access Pages 77 - 90
Corporate Environmental Crime, Biopiracy No access Pages 91 - 104
Corporate Environmental Crime and Climate Justice No access Pages 105 - 122
Corporate Environmental Harm and Human Rights No access Pages 123 - 142
Remedying Corporate Environmental Crime No access Pages 143 - 154
Bibliography No access Pages 155 - 174
Index No access Pages 175 - 180
About the Author No access Pages 181 - 182