Private Sector Climate Governance Flashcards
What is the priviliged position of business in climate change governance?
- Clusters of public and private sector actors connected to each other by resource tendencies, such as information, money, legitimacy (Carter, 2001)
- Policy outcomes are made up by decision-makers in government and interests of capital and labour; influenced by various interest groups
How were private sector interests in climate change characterised in the 1990s?
- Fossil Fuels and related industries and finance industry were only corporate sector interested in climate change
What are the six pillars of corporate strategy in regard to climate change?
- Challenge climate science
- Fund climate-sceptic NGOs and charities
- Emphasize cost of action
- Diplomacy to crate stalemate in internal negotiations
- Using domestic politics to stall international talks
- Directly influence climate change negotiations
Bulkeley and Newell, 2015
What two models do Skjarseth and Skovin (2001) outline for influencing business attitude?
- Corporate Actor Model
- Environmental Risk
- Company’s environmental reputation
- Capacity for organisational learning
- Domestic Politics Model
- Societal demands for environment protection
- Government supply of environmental policy
- Political institutions linking demand for and supply of environmental policy
How did private sector interests in 2000s?
- Rise of carbon markets
- Emergence of low carbon economy
- More diverse range of business sectors engaged
How has emerging business engangement in the UK been characterised?
- Green technologies could help reconcile economic growth and ecological integrity in opening up policy agenda (Owens, 2010)
- Climate became seen as ‘good’ for business
What is co-op’s approach to climate change?
- Co-op’s initiative seen as predominantly matter of business strategy rather than corporate social responsibility (Laufer, 2003)
- Portrayed engagement in CSR motivated by intrinsic factors (e.g. ethical values and moral leadership) rather than ‘extrinsic factors’ (Dhanesh, 2015)
What are the critiques to co-op’s climate change approach?
- Disconnect between climate action and discursive sustainability published in its Annual Sustainability reports
- ‘What is good for business is good for the environment’ (Drake et al., 2004)
- Geographical perspective critique this due to incompatibility of traditional business growth and environment concern
- Information in its annual sustainability is often cherry picked shown by lack of disclosed information on quantity and steps to reduce emissions
- Green washing and selective disclosure of positive information sows reports aimed at promoting ethical image and framing of CSR (Lyon and Maxwell, 2011)
- Co-op’s strategy of voluntarism raises complex issues of transparency and legitimacy within private sector governance
What are Shell’s four contributions to tackling climate change?
- Supplying natural gas to replace coal for power generation
- Carbon capture and storage strategies
- Developing alternative energies
- Implementing energy-efficiency measures in their operations
How did Shell’s stance change following the public uproar around Brent Spar debate?
- Shell moved from economic development stance towards sustainable development discourse
- Deconstruct boundaries between firm and nature (Livesey and Kearnis, 2002)
How does Shell frame gas?
- Peddle gas as a ‘clean’ energy source
- Frame this though reports and documenting framing gas as ‘smart’ and ‘best’ solution
What are shell scenarios?
- Explores features, insecurities and boundaries of future landscape with engagement of alternative viewpoints
- Influence policy and promote own agenda
What are Shell’s two New Lens Scenarios?
- Mountains
- Oceans
What is Shell’s Mountain scenario?
- Creation of new policies to unlock gas resources
- Stimulate global gas consumption to increase by more than 3/4 by 2035
- Become backbone of cleaner global energy system (Imeida, 2013)
What do Shell need to change about their climate change strategy?
- Need to bring energy and climate change tracks together to produce one synergistic approach (Hoffman, 2006)
- Currently focused on energy strategy