**1. Introduction**

According to relevant survey reports, the number of Chinese new automobiles almost exceeded 25.76 million, and the amount of Chinese vehicle ownership reached more than 260 million up to 2019. The rapid growth of the number of automobiles has brought a series of environmental issues. In the process of automobile production, use, recycling and disposal, air, soil, water, etc., will be polluted to a certain extent, resulting in waste of resources and energy shortage [1]. These environmental issues have aroused widespread concern from the government, enterprises and scholars. While the Chinese government is strengthening environmental supervision of the automotive industry, the extension of the production responsibility and Corporate Environmental Responsibility (CER) have become hot topics of concern to many automotive industry units. Therefore, many Chinese

**Citation:** Zhang, H.; Zhang, M.; Yan, W.; Liu, Y.; Jiang, Z.; Li, S. Analysis the Drivers of Environmental Responsibility of Chinese Auto Manufacturing Industry Based on Triple Bottom Line. *Processes* **2021**, *9*, 751. https:// doi.org/10.3390/pr9050751


Academic Editor: Luis Puigjaner

Received: 2 April 2021 Accepted: 22 April 2021 Published: 24 April 2021

**Publisher's Note:** MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

**Copyright:** © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

auto companies are aware of the importance of sustainable development, and have implemented some sustainable development strategies, such as CER, remanufacturing, green manufacturing and cleaner production [2–6].

In fact, due to various reasons, it is difficult for them to effectively implement sustainable development strategies, especially CER. The main reason is that some automobile companies are worried that the implementation of CER may affect their financial interests, so they are unwilling to implement CER. In addition, some companies voluntarily implement CER, but they do not know what measures should be taken. Therefore, by analyzing the drivers of CER, the fundamental reason why enterprises cannot effectively implement CER can be found, thereby promoting the change of development strategy of Chinese Auto Manufacturing Industry (CAMI) and achieving coordinated development of economic and environmental benefits.

At present, some studies focus on the combination of CER and sustainable practices, such as integrating CER into the supply chain, and the combination of sustainable development and CER. As many automobile companies pay more attention to economic interests, compared with well-known foreign automobile companies, the efficiency of CER implementation by Chinese automobile manufacturers is relatively low. So far, only a few studies have focused on the drivers of CER for Chinese automobile manufacturers and revealed the internal connection between the corporate environmental responsibility and the corporate economic benefits. The "Triple Bottom Line" was proposed by John Elkington [7], a well-known British management consultant and sustainability expert, and used it to measure his company's performance in the United States. Triple Bottom Line (TBL) theory believes that there should be three bottom lines: profit, people and the earth. TBL aims to assess the level of corporate commitment to social responsibility and its impact on the environment over time. Additionally, CER is concerned about the impact of the development of the enterprise on the environment. There is a close relationship between TBL and CER. The influencing factors of enterprises implementing CER can be analyzed from the perspective of TBL. The purpose of both is to achieve a balanced development of economic and environmental benefits. Therefore, this study attempts to identify and analyze the CER drivers of Chinese automakers from the perspective of TBL to bridge the gap. In this study, first, based on a comprehensive analysis of the existing literature, expert opinions and the opinions of Chinese auto industry managers, common drivers were identified. Second, we sent questionnaires to some automobile companies. Third, based on the results of the questionnaire survey, a quantitative and the fuzzy decision-making test and evaluation laboratory (fuzzy DEMATEL) analysis was used to determine the key drivers and classifications.

The rest of this paper is arranged as follows: Section 2 reports a literature review related to the research topic and proposes the main innovations of this paper based on comparative analysis. Section 3 describes the problem. Section 4 introduces the method used in this research, namely fuzzy DEMATEL, and proposes a model framework for analyzing the CER drivers of the Chinese automobile industry. Section 5 verifies the proposed model through case studies. Section 6 discusses in detail. Finally, Section 7 gives conclusions and future work.

#### **2. Literature Review**

#### *2.1. Corporate Environmental Responsibility and Triple Bottom Line*

CER, called corporate environmental responsibility, refers to a company's duties to abstain from damaging natural environments, which derives from corporate social responsibility (CSR) [8]. In recent years, CER has become an important concept and has received extensive attention from relevant researchers. This is because the implementation of CER can enhance the sustainable development ability of enterprises, improve the natural environment, and solve various social and ecological problems such as climate change and biodiversity loss [9,10]. Gunningham [11] described the development of the concept of CER and studied the debate about the relationship between CER and

competitive advantage. On the basis of Carroll's CSR pyramid model, Wang Hong [12] explored the system characteristics of CER and sorted out its elements, structure and functions. Studies have shown that the implementation of CER can promote the green and sustainable development of manufacturing to a certain extent [13], and the improvement of the company's market competitiveness and profitability can be tracked through the implementation of environmental management activities [14]. The results of the study were verified by listed company A [15,16], which showed that the performance of corporate environmental responsibility (CER) by company A has a significant positive impact on the company's financial performance, but it has a lag effect, and higher environmental investment can bring higher profitability. Furthermore, many firms are discovering that there is an advantage to advocating for environmental regulations and preparing for them to be implemented before they become law. In a recent study, the researcher found that firms support climate change legislation as a means of gaining power over their competitors. Essentially, even if a new regulation hurts a firm in the short term, the firm may embrace it because they know that it will hurt their competitors even more. This allows them to come out on top in the long run [17].

The TBL proposed by Elkington [7] is an accounting framework that includes three aspects: economic (profit), social (people), and environmental (planet). It is used by many researchers to solve various problems [18,19]. The TBL considers profit using traditional measures for evaluating company profits, evaluating the company's environmental responsibility, evaluating the company's sustainability pillars [20,21], and citizens' concerns about corporate social responsibility as indicated by the company's operations [22,23]. Ahi and Searcy [24] claim that sustainability is the ability to maintain long-term welfare responsibly, manage resources so that the company can meet current needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The TBL has been widely applied in many domains to promote sustainable development that also provides a co-benefit. Wu et al. [25] suggested that firms should consider stakeholders, resilience, long-term goals and current operations when evaluating sustainability strategies. Previous research also emphasized that TBL is not sufficient to achieve complete sustainability, and we must take greater steps to discuss socioeconomics, social environment and ecological efficiency [26,27]. Moreover, several studies noted that relations, resource consumption and policies must be integrated with sustainable practices to ensure the cobenefit [28].

Many scholars have conducted case studies from the perspective of TBL. Bergenwall [29] studied the differences in process design between American automakers and Toyota on the three aspects of sustainability. Gimenez [30] studied the impact of TBL on sustainable management. They proposed that the internal environmental plan has a positive impact on the three components of TBL, while internal social activities only have a positive impact on the two components of social and environmental performance. Neri et al. [31] designed a triple bottom line balanced key performance indicator set to measure the sustainability performance of industrial supply chains. Agrawal et al. [32] discussed the deployment decisions of sustainable reverse logistics in the Indian electronics industry, and studied the impact of disposal decisions on TBL, that is, the economic, environmental and social performance of reverse logistics. Hussain et al. [33] studied the relationship between corporate governance and triple bottom line sustainability performance through the perspectives of agency theory and stakeholder theory.

#### *2.2. Drivers of CER in the Automotive Industry*

The rapid growth of automobile ownership has caused a series of problems, such as climate change, emissions, pollution, etc. [34]. For CAMI, the factors that promote the effective implementation of CER through some sustainable development practices (such as CER, green manufacturing, sustainable supply chain management, manufacturer extension responsibility, life cycle analysis, and environmental certification, etc.) are called drivers. Therefore, many researchers have paid attention to the CER problem and conducted some extended studies.

Some studies discuss the relationship and importance of TBL principles and strategic decisions from the perspective of sustainable supply chains in the automotive industry. The successful implementation of sustainable supply chains can promote the implementation of CER [35–37]. Other studies illustrate the important indicators of CER implementation from the perspective of the green evaluation system of the automobile manufacturing industry [38]. There are also some studies that mainly elaborated the relationship between the implementation of CER and legislation from the aspect of government legislation. Studies have shown that government legislation is the most critical driver for the implementation of CER [39,40]. There are also other explorations of the relationship between energy certification, changes in corporate management strategies and the implementation of CER, including Cai et al. [41], which explored energy performance certification in the machinery manufacturing industry, and provided information for the implementation of energy performance certification strategies. The theoretical foundation is thus promoted to promote the active implementation of CER by automakers. Nunes [42] focuses on investigating and benchmarking the green operating plans of the automotive industry as documented in the environmental reports of selected companies. Research by Yu Cheng et al. [43] shows that Chinese automakers still have much room for improvement in terms of consumer satisfaction, resource conservation, community services and low-carbon activities. Kehbila et al. [40] systematically analyzed the motivations, obstacles and benefits of South African automobile companies participating in environmental change and provided some suggestions that may promote the effective implementation of strategic corporate environmental management. The research results show that achieving consistent compliance, reducing the daily impact on the environment, improving the working and living conditions of employees, and improving image and reputation are the most important driving forces. Babiak and Trendafilova [44] studied the motivations and pressures reported by senior managers to adopt sustainable practices in the industry. The research results show that strategic motivation and institutional pressure are the main reasons for adopting environmental management measures. Lee et al. [45] studied the driving forces for the implementation of CER and green practices in the Korean logistics industry, and pointed out that social expectations, organizational support and stakeholder pressure are important driving forces for the implementation of CER and green practices. Goli et al. [46] explained that corporate environmental responsibility (CER) involves key solutions for the success of corporate innovation.

By reviewing the existing literature, we know that domestic and foreign scholars have conducted CER research from different aspects. Based on the TBL method, some studies have been conducted on the sustainable development of the automotive industry, but mainly focus on the TBL analysis of the automotive industry supply chain order optimization, supply chain management or supplier sustainability. However, there are few studies on the implementation of CER in CAMI. From the perspective of TBL, there are fewer drivers for CER in automobile companies. This has led to companies not paying attention to the implementation of CER, and the effect of CER implementation is poor and difficult.

Therefore, this paper aims to analyze the key drivers of CAMI's implementation of CER from the perspective of TBL, and then analyze the promotion effect of key drivers on economy, environment and society, so as to improve the effect of CER implementation, and realize the coordination and sustainability development of economic and environmental benefits.

#### **3. Identify Common Drivers of CER**

As environmental problems have become more prominent, the public's awareness of environmental protection has continued to increase. When consumers buy automobiles, green features have become one of their important choices [47,48]. Some automakers realize that they should implement CER throughout the product life cycle to minimize the negative impact on the environment to meet consumer's demand for environmentally

friendly products [49]. However, they do not know how to effectively implement CER to promote the sustainable development and green development of enterprises, and the implementation of CER in CAMI has always been controversial, so there is an urgent need to improve the effectiveness of CER implementation.

Therefore, this paper analyzes the drivers of CER in CAMI from the perspective of TBL (economic, social and environmental). Based on relevant literature, expert opinions and the opinions of Chinese auto industry managers, we jointly determine the common drivers for CER in China's auto industry. First, we collect CER drivers from relevant literature, and use "corporate environmental responsibility", "corporate environmental responsibility drivers" and "Chinese automobile manufacturer environmental responsibility" as search keywords. Secondly, we inquired about the main motivations for Chinese automakers to implement CER in 120 Chinese auto industry units through e-mail and telephone. We finally received replies from 82 Chinese auto companies. Third, on the basis of the above process of determining common drivers, we held an online seminar, inviting CAMI experts and managers to participate in order to solve these classifications. After discussion, we got the final result on the classification of common drivers. Through the above process, the common CER drivers in CAMI were identified and classified, as shown in Table 1. The main drivers identified include policy drivers, technology drivers, corporate internal motivations and corporate external pressure. Finally, a case verification was carried out through a Chinese automobile manufacturer.


**Table 1.** Common drivers of corporate environment responsibility.
