Page 66 - Social Enterprise A New Business Paradigm for Thailand

In response to this wave of public activism, some corporations began expanding their CSR efforts
beyond employee welfare to include initiatives that addressed the broader social and

environmental impacts of their operations. As a result, the 1970s marked the beginning of
governmental responses to growing public expectations regarding environmental and quality-of-
life issues. Under pressure from labor unions, civil society, and academia, the United States
government established the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1979 to begin addressing
these concerns through formal regulation and oversight.

As public pressure continued to mount, the 1980s marked a pivotal shift in the economic and
regulatory landscape. In response to domestic economic challenges, the administrations of
President Ronald Reagan in the United States and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the United

Kingdom introduced deregulatory policies aimed at revitalizing national economies. Despite this
loosening of business oversight, there were growing calls for the private sector to acknowledge
and address its environmental responsibilities.

Meanwhile, scholars began to formalize the conceptual boundaries of corporate social
responsibility (CSR). Influential frameworks emerged, including Carroll’s Pyramid of CSR in 1991
and Elkington’s Triple Bottom Line in 1994, which advanced the notion that economic
development should be pursued alongside environmental and social well-being. Environmental
concerns became increasingly global in scope. The Brundtland Commission’s landmark 1987

report, Our Common Future, defined sustainability as development that “meets the needs of the
present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” That
same year saw the adoption of the Montreal Protocol to control ozone-depleting substances,
followed in 1988 by the formation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to
assess climate risks.

By the end of the decade, environmental issues had moved to the forefront of global attention. A
major catalyst was the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off the coast of Alaska, which caused
catastrophic damage to marine ecosystems and biodiversity. The disaster intensified public

awareness of the environmental costs of globalization and sparked a broader reckoning with
climate change. From the early 1990s onward, businesses began to engage with CSR more
seriously and systematically.

In 1992, the United Nations convened the Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED),
commonly known as The Earth Summit. The conference was a watershed moment, leading to key
international agreements: the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and Agenda 21, a comprehensive action
plan for sustainable development. These agreements helped bring environmental challenges into

sharper public focus and generated a surge in climate-related research and discourse.

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