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Responsible Care is a voluntary code of conduct developed, enforced, and monitored by the Chemical Manufacturers Association. Voluntary codes could be designed and enforced by regulators, nonprofit groups, industry associations, and individual firms. They could vary in their scope, focusing on firms around the globe, in a given region, within a country, or in a given industry. This article focuses on Responsible Care's self regulatory services that pertain to establishing, monitoring, and enforcing industry-wide environmental, health, and safety standards. Employing insights from the club theory, stakeholder theory, institutionalist theory, and the corporate social performance perspective, it examines the demand and supply sides of voluntary codes. Finally, it discusses theoretical implications and the key challenges faced by Responsible Care in the future.
The Chemical Manufacturers Association (CMA) is one of the oldest trade and industry associations in the United States. It was founded in May 1872 when 15 sulphuric acid manufacturers joined together to develop common policies on the safe transportation of their product. Currently, the CMA has 197 members that account for about 90% of the industry's basic chemical output (CMA, 1998a; "Responsible Care: Doing It Right," 1998). Responsible Care is the CMA's key program for improving the industry's image and performance in the areas of environment, health, and safety (EHS). It was launched in Canada in 1985 and in the United States in 1988. This article examines the program's achievements in the United States only and the challenges it faces in the second decade of its existence.
Responsible Care is a voluntary code of conduct developed, monitored, and enforced by the CMA. Many of its policies are beyond compliance, that is, more stringent than the requirements of extant laws. Voluntary codes could be designed and enforced by regulators, nonprofit groups, industry associations, and individual firms either alone or in some sort of mutual partnership (Labatt & Maclaren, 1998). They could vary in their scope, focusing on firms around the globe, in a given region, within a country, or in a given industry. Voluntary codes and other forms of self regulatory structures can be found in many industries such as apparel, entertainment, accounting, and advertising. Codes focus on three categories of substantive objectives: setting rates and prices, controlling market entry, or setting common legal,...