Voluntary sector factors

initiatives. Other limitations include the possibility that new laws will affect future but not

existing facilities, potential regulatory loopholes arising from reliance on firm-generated data and irregular inspections, and the lengthy delay between drafting local standards and applying them after EPA approval. Furthermore, the fact that Taiwan’s policies tend to get drafted in response to policymaking⁵² and technological innovation⁵³ happening elsewhere suggests that the island could do more to proactively strengthen standards for EMS instead of just playing follow the leader.

2.5 Voluntary sector factors

According to Huang and Kung (2010), modern-day companies are experiencing intensifying pressure from environmental governance mechanisms to adopt a CSR approach (CSR is

discussed in greater depth in the literature review). In their research into environmental

disclosure patterns in Taiwan, they also assert that non-shareholder stakeholders are increasingly influential in the corporate decision-making process. Be that as it may, my research uncovered relatively little evidence of direct voluntary sector involvement in environmental issues

emanating specifically from EAF steel production. This is most likely because the distinction between EAF and other types of steel production is highly technical and outside the sphere of common knowledge. Also, EAF facilities are typically small- and medium-sized enterprises that are relatively few in number. According to TSIIA, Taiwan is home to a total of 21 electric arc furnace facilities, many of which are set apart from residential areas in industrial zones where more than one type of factory operates. This allows companies to effectively diffuse their environmental impact, in the mind of the public, to industrial zones as a whole.

Still, the following paragraphs describe some pertinent environmental incidents involving steel companies (including EAF firms and their affiliated waste treatment facilities). These incidents mainly revolve around the unsafe disposal of furnace slag and EAF dust containing dioxins, chromium, and high concentrations of heavy metals. Also, the tactics and ideology of

52 Besides the aforementioned policies, Taiwan’s hazardous waste laws are similar to the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) in the U.S., and Taiwan’s Soil and

Groundwater Reclamation Law is based on the U.S.’ RCRA and Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (Huang, 2001).

53 Stories of Taiwan’s use of foreign technology, however, don’t always have a happy ending.

Huang (2001) describes a German company that was hired to process the island’s EAF dust.

Their equipment clogged and broke down.

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voluntary sector actors to exert pressure on polluters directly, and indirectly via pressuring the government, is explored. In sum, these agents typically employ petitions, press conferences, protest marches, lawsuits, environmental testing and coalitions with lawmakers and political parties to influence those in power.

The spatial dynamic of industrial zones/concentrated industry is a sticking point, especially in Southern Taiwan. In a June 2014 rally against development plans in Kaohsiung, one resident activist said the following: “If the project is approved, we will become like the filling in a sandwich biscuit, squeezed in a small area between several industrial areas, including state-run refiner CPC Taiwan, state-owned (sic) integrated steelmaker China Steel, and state-owned Taiwan Power.” The same protester stated that many local residents had succumbed to sickness from air pollution.⁵⁴ In another case, hundreds marched in protest of the construction of a galvanizing⁵⁵ factory at Quintain Steel’s facilities in Guantian (_官田) District, Tainan. Instead of problems arising from the over-concentration of industrial activity as in Kaohsiung, activists decried the placement of the factory on land adjacent to residential areas in an agricultural district, fearing the pollution of local farmlands and fish ponds.⁵⁶ Wei Chih Steel Industrial Co., an EAF facility contacted for this study, is also located in Guantian District and features a photograph of its facilities behind what appears to be agricultural land on the homepage of its website.⁵⁷ Indeed, the public tends to direct its frustration toward industrial developments⁵⁸ or industrialization in general, or companies that have been caught mishandling their environmental obligations in particular. A 2005 case involving Taiwan Steel Union Co., an organization that treats hazardous EAF furnace dust, exemplifies the latter.

In a report published by the EPA on Dec. 17, 2005, Taiwan Steel Union Co. was identified as the most likely culprit behind high levels of dioxins found in duck eggs in Changhua County,

54 Lee, I.C. (2013). Kaohsiung residents rally against development plans. Taipei Times (June 4, 2013)

55 A galvanizing facility entails extensive use of chromium.

56 Anonymous. (2011). Hundreds protest against new steel plant in Tainan. Taipei Times (July 4, 2011)

57 See www.weichih.com.tw.

58 Taiwan’s nuclear power industry and its Fourth Nuclear Power Plant has been a prime target for public rebuke in recent years, and even energy-generating windmills have been subject to intense scrutiny by neighbors who cite health concerns and negative effects on local bird populations.

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Hsienhsi (線西) and Shenkang (伸港) Townships.⁵⁹ One Shenkang farm in particular owned by duck farmer Huang Chi-wen (黃奇文) and located adjacent to Taiwan Steel Union’s property tested positive for excessive levels of dioxin throughout the premises, including the soil, plants and animal feed.⁶⁰ The dioxin profile from Huang’s farm even matched that of Taiwan Steel Union Co. effluent, further confirming their guilt in emitting dioxins far in excess of the legal limit.⁶¹ Huang and five other farms in the county were forced to cease production, cull 28,000 egg-laying ducks, and live on NT$15,000 government subsidies for a time or until their products could be declared safe. As is typical in these cases, the victims of egregious lapses in corporate environmental management are welcome to sue the company that threatened or extinguished their livelihood and/or health.

In Huang’s case, the director-general of the Department of Air Quality Protection and Noise Control said the government would help him with a lawsuit if he desired. Besides government support though, some of Taiwan’s most active and visible nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) help individuals and community self-help groups carry out lawsuits as their primary function.⁶² In fact, it’s safe to say that in lieu of more widespread environmental activism

targeting EAF steel firms, the threat of lawsuits is a particularly potent form of pressure for EMS development emanating from the voluntary sector.

In addition, some voluntary sector actors affect steel industry players indirectly via lobbying the government. In 2012, for instance, the Citizens of the Earth Foundation (地球公民基金會) collected over 12,000 signatures and city council backing for a petition in support of stricter

59 Chou, J. (2005). Steel factory suspected of causing high dioxin levels. Taipei Times (Dec. 17, 2005)

60 Another case of ducks contaminated with dioxins (and heavy metals like copper, nickel, chromium, zinc, arsenic and lead) came to light in 2009. These animals had been raised on farmland covering an old industrial landfill containing steel furnace slag in Daliao (_大寮) Township, Kaohsiung. All 9,000 birds were culled. See Author unknown. (2009). Toxic ducks spark health scare. Taipei Times (Nov. 13, 2009).

61 Taiwan Steel Union Co. also made the news in 2014, when environmentalists protested against their plan to expand their EAF dust treatment plant, fearing intensified environmental

consequences for the facility’s neighbors. See Lee, I.C. (2014). Taiwan Steel Union’s ash treatment plan draws fire. Taipei Times (May 30, 2014).

62 Wild at Heart and the Environmental Jurists Association are two such organizations that contributed to this study.

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pollution emissions standards for Kaohsiung City.⁶³ Press conferences are also a staple in

Taiwan’s voluntary sector toolkit. Press conferences spread the word about environmental issues, particularly by attracting the media, as in 2013 when academics at the Taiwan Academy of Ecology pressured the Forestry Bureau to investigate Dragon Steel’s “green forestry” efforts.

Dragon Steel, an EAF operator and subsidiary of China Steel, had allegedly used herbicide to clear out indigenous species and plant high-value trees in defiance of the spirit of the

government’s sustainable forestry initiative.⁶⁴

In a recent case from May 2014, residents from Kaohsiung’s Cishan (旗山) District, Citizens of the Earth activists and a legislator called attention to China Steel’s alleged dumping of furnace slag onto farmlands, contaminating a source of municipal water. Representatives of community self-help associations filed formal petitions with the Water Resources Agency, the EPA, and the Council of Agriculture, later telling media that these agencies denied any wrongdoing and refused to act. A Cishan Respect and Caring Education Foundation representative also claimed that the local Environmental Protection Bureau classifies furnace slag as an industrial “product”

rather than industrial waste and it thus eludes proper monitoring by the public sector.⁶⁵ The Chinese-language Taiwan Environmental Information Center online⁶⁶ clarifies that, whereas EAF dust is considered a hazardous industrial waste, furnace slag is not considered hazardous (but it is still a waste product). Furnace slag disposal was first regulated in 2008; beforehand there were no strict laws governing its management. Figure 14 shows a regional map featuring EAF facility locations, the home of Taiwan Steel Union Co. and sites of environmental

destruction attributed to the steel industry.

63 Fang, C.H. & Pan, J. (2013). Kaohsiung takes action on air pollution. Taipei Times (April 4, 2013)

64 Lee, I.C. (2013). Bureau to probe forestry claims. Taipei Times (May 23, 2013)

65 Lee, I.C. (2014). Furnace slag is dumped in farmland at Cishan. Taipei Times (May 28, 2014)

66 See e-info.org.tw/node/49455.

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Figure 14: EAF industry and related environmental damage sites

The Cishan District case epitomizes key themes in voluntary sector criticism of business-as-usual practices: industry will cut any corners they can in the pursuit of profits, and environmental protection agencies too often aid and abet this behavior. The EPA and its affiliated agencies are especially the object of scrutiny, as any perceived failure to carry out their responsibility (or worse, a perceived lack of interest in doing so) contradicts their raison d’être. Environmental groups generate bureaucratic momentum to carry out administrative duties when they attract media attention to an issue. Also, when experts from the voluntary sector conduct tests on slag-contaminated water (as they did in Cishan), this action in essence supplements the sometimes stretched administrative capacity of public sector environmental agencies.

Expert critiques of existing environmental policy might also have profound indirect

consequences for environmental investment levels when public sector advocates help change the laws. The results of the 2014 Nine-in-One Elections — in which the DPP secured crushing landslide victories against the ruling KMT party throughout the island — has particularly piqued the interest of environmentalists who see the potential for change in the unsettling of KMT power. Time will tell if this optimism in the opposition party was deserved.

Finally, the fact that other hot-button issues tend to divert the attention of voluntary sector actors away from EAF steel production does not mean these actors have a minimal part in corporate environmental decision making. In fact, research from industrialized countries in particular suggest that the general cultural and political climate in which factories operate can

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effect operations through a variety of means, from social norms disseminating through a corporate hierarchy to increasingly powerful NGO lobbies. These factors and more will be explored in the literature review section.