Emerging-Market MNEs and Sustainable Development

A major development in the global foreign direct investment (FDI) market over recent years has been the rapid rise of MNEs from emerging markets. In furtherance of its overarching mission, CCSI aims to ensure more sustainable investment by these emerging-market MNEs.

The first step is to develop and strengthen empirical research on emerging-market MNEs and establish a sound basis for understanding and discussing the role of those entities in the world economy by identifying the major players and their salient features and drivers. This is essential because these new players are less well known than their developed-country counterparts, which have been part of the business landscape for many decades. The second step is to focus more closely on understanding and improving the relationship between emerging-market MNEs and sustainable development including, for example, the impacts of these investors on environmental and labor standards in host countries.

CCSI is pursuing these objectives primarily through its Emerging Market Global Players Project, a project through which CCSI leads and coordinates research among a worldwide network of academics and institutions that produce new studies on the salient features of MNEs from emerging markets and their impact on sustainable development. CCSI is also engaged on these issues through research analyzing the practices of emerging market MNEs on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the challenges and opportunities CSR can present for their investments at home and abroad.