Journal of African Development

The environment plays a vital part in a creature`s life however, commercial exploitation of environment along with its resources is threatening the environment of the country and causing ecological imbalance. The business organizations for their operations often resort to activities like falling of trees, illegal hunting of wild animals, pollution, and land degradation etc. Such activities often affect the tribal and indigenous communities as these activities often cause destruction of their habitat and financially exploiting them. To deal with these issues numerous laws have been formulated by the government. The primary objective behind formulation of such laws is not just to protect the environment but also to maintain and improve the same. These laws either directly or indirectly imposes restrictions on activities by corporations which impairs the environment and its quality. These restrictions may be in the form of imposing fines or closing of its business operations. However, the effective implementation of such laws remains doubtful. The companies rarely adhere to the environmental regulations and often try to find out, and use loopholes for evading their responsibilities imposed by the legislations. The inefficient cooperation, and coordination between government agencies, lack of public participation, and corruption provide room for evading responsibility by the companies. The present paper discusses the difficulties faced in making corporate houses adhere to the environmental norms along with the application of principles like Polluter Pays and Precautionary for making a corporation responsible towards environment while conducting its operations. The paper discusses the effects of non-compliance and recommends possible remedies for addressing these issues relating to non-compliance of environmental regulations. It further aims to making corporates and their actions more sustainable.