ABSTRACT
Market reforms in many developing countries, however, have not produced the expected environmental benefits. The process of marketisation was shaped by several factors which received inadequate consideration from the more strident market reformers. While discussion of environmental issues emerged among small circles of Egyptian scientists in the early 1970s, it was only in the 1990s that a few Egyptian companies began to see possibilities in the environmental sector. The introduction of catalytic converters to the Egyptian market revealed even more clearly how corporate environmentalism derived from, and reinforced, the position of influential firms within the private and public sector. Privatisation of publicly owned assets was one of the central tenets of most market liberalisation strategies. Environmental measures undertaken as a business opportunity, as in the case of the adoption of catalytic converters, or as a donor-sponsored project, as in the example of mercury decontamination at a chemical company, did not translate into a commitment to environmentally sound business strategies.
