Climate Change And The Governance Of Corporations

Climate change represents the most important environmental challenge of our time. Organisations are responding by implementing governance processes and taking action to reduce their own emissions and the emissions from their supply chains and value chains. Yet very little is known about how these efforts contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions (if, indeed, they make any substantive contribution at all) or about how they might be harnessed to deliver more ambitious reductions in emissions. This book explains when and where particular forms of governance intervention – including internal governance processes and external governance pressures – are likely to impact climate change. From this analysis, it offers practical proposals on the climate policy frameworks that need to be in place to facilitate or accelerate changes in corporate behaviour. The book is truly global: it focuses on the world’s 25 largest retailers (including Walmart, Tesco, Carrefour, Sears and Aldi) and is based on detailed interviews with senior managers from these corporations, and with key global and national NGOs, corporate responsibility experts, politicians and regulators. These interviews provide clear insights into how external governance pressures and actions (public opinion, regulation, incentives) interact with internal governance conditions (management systems and processes, corporate policies, board/CEO leadership) to change and shape corporate actions on climate change and, in turn, the climate change impacts of these corporations. This book can be used as a core reference for any courses dealing with corporate governance and business strategy, in particular those relating to climate change and to environmental management more generally. It is also of relevance to business practitioners, public policy makers, investors and NGOs interested in ensuring that companies play a constructive role in the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Company law can and should act as a bridge (rather than a barrier) to progressive corporate climate action.

This report provides an overview of the main trends and issues related to the implications of climate change for corporate governance. It focuses on economic, legal and accounting issues related to shareholder rights, corporate disclosure and the responsibilities of company boards. Importantly, this report informs the ongoing review of the G20/OECD Principles of Corporate Governance which help policy makers evaluate and improve the legal, regulatory and institutional framework for corporate governance.

This report, commissioned by Ceres, is the first comprehensive assessment of how 63 of the world's largest consumer and information technology companies are preparing themselves to meet the colossal challenge of climate change. The report includes 11 industry sectors -- Apparel, Beverages, Big Box Retailers, Grocery & Drug Retailers, Personal & Household Goods, Pharmaceuticals, Real Estate, Restaurants, Semiconductors, Technology and Travel & Leisure.

Transformation to a low carbon economy is a central tenet to any discussion on the solutions to the complex challenges of climate change and energy security. Despite advances in policy, carbon management and continuing development of clean technology, fundamental business transformation has not occurred because of multiple political, economic, social and organisational issues. Carbon Governance, Climate Change and Business Transformation is based on leading academic and industry input, and three international workshops focused on low carbon transformation in leading climate policy jurisdictions (Canada, USA and the UK) under the international Carbon Governance Project (CGP) banner. The book pulls insights from this innovative collaborative network to identify the policy combinations needed to create transformative change. It explores fundamental questions about how governments and the private sector conceptualize the problem of climate change, the conditions under which business transformation can genuinely take place and key policy and business innovations needed. Broadly, the book is based on emerging theories of multi-levelled, multi-actor carbon governance, and applies these ideas to the real world implications for tackling climate change through business transformation. Conceptually and empirically, this book stimulates both academic discussion and practical business models for low carbon transformation.

This book is a focussed and up-to-date review about the key challenges, trends, implications, strategies, and ways of overcoming, that dynamic and competitive organizations are facing now and increasingly in future by climate change. The book creates a better understanding of the impacts that climate transition will have on organizations and how they are responding to find opportunities while overcoming the risks. What corporate governance models can and are organizations developing? What climate transition strategies are organizations creating? Who should be involved in the decision-making processes? To what extent are principles of transparency, equity, participation, inclusion, effectiveness, and efficiency present in corporate governance for climate transitions? These and other issues are just a few of the challenges that organizations by the climate change transition. International experts from a wide range of disciplines and perspectives have been invited to contribute to this book in order for providing a comprehensive and informed perspective for researchers, corporate leaders and students of business and management as well as environmental studies.