Woerd KF van der ,
Wit CM de ,
Kolk A ,
Levy DL ,
Vellinga P ,
Behlyarova E
75 p
in Dutch
2000
Toon Nederlands
English Abstract Private companies will play a critical role in
successful efforts to address climate change, due to both their role as
major emitters of greenhouse gases and to their capacity to invest in
mitigation technologies. However, relatively little is known about the
triggers for change in corporate behaviour, which are at the basis of
corporate decisions to support or oppose policy initiatives. The research
project 'Diverging business strategies towards climate change' has
investigated what strategies -and why and how- specific sectors of industry
develop to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Objective was to provide
information of relevance to the COP 2000 Conference, November 2000 in The
Hague. Research was sponsored by the Dutch National Research Programme on
Global Air Pollution and Climate Change (NRP). In an USA-Europe
co-operation, researchers have analysed emerging climate strategies in the
oil industry, the automobile industry, the chemical industry and the bank &
insurance sector. Together, these sectors are the most important players in
the climate policy debate. Special attention has been paid to the questions
whether strategies of EU based corporations differ systematically from USA
based corporations. Results show rather sectorial specific developments.
In most sectors, i.e. oil, automobile and banks, European corporations
generally tend to have more advanced policies than their USA counterparts,
but this does not apply to chemical companies. Corporate strategies appear
to be highly determined by a combination of market situation in their home
country and of access to alternative technologies. In the automobile
industry, USA and Europe show convergent strategies. In the other sectors,
convergence is not clearly visible.
