The Policy Role of Corporate Carbon Management: Co‐regulating Ecological Effectiveness
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12618 |
| Published date | 01 November 2018 |
| Author | Jane Lister |
| Date | 01 November 2018 |
The Policy Role of Corporate Carbon
Management: Co-regulating Ecological
Effectiveness
Jane Lister
University of British Columbia
Abstract
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has called for private sector participation in global
carbon governance and corporations now seem to be heeding the call at an unprecedented scale. Both critics and propo-
nents of corporate social responsibility (CSR) interpret this as a necessary but uncertain development. Business response has
demonstrably failed in the past. Contributing to the CSR and private environmental governance effectiveness literature, this
article argues that while voluntary corporate climate governance efforts are essential and improving, they are far from suffi-
cient for meaningful decarbonization. Through an evaluation of the three main underlying corporate carbon management
practices (target setting, carbon pricing and carbon reporting), the article highlights how company efforts create business
advantage (e.g. risk management) but fall short on ecological effectiveness (i.e. absolute carbon reduction). In response, the
paper argues the importance of greater climate policy co-regulation. This includes indirect enabling by governments and the
IPCC to encourage incremental improvements in company efforts. It also includes more direct, state-led prescriptive interven-
tions coordinated across supply chains and supported by international organizations, to ensure corporate participation and
deeper transformative change to business models, industry structures and consumptive patterns at the root of the global cli-
mate crisis.
Policy Implications
•Voluntary corporate carbon target-setting, pricing and reporting initiatives are increasing but lack sufficient business ambi-
tion, implementation scale, and consistency.
•While businesses are leading economic efficiency carbon intensity improvements, ecological effectiveness (absolute carbon
reduction) remains elusive and worsening.
•Deep decarbonization will require governments to re-integrate direct carbon reduction prescriptions alongside indirect
enabling climate policies.
•UNFCC and UNEP organizations will also need to strengthen support for the monitoring and accountability functions of
key intermediaries, as well as, adopt more specific climate goals and objectives to include investment and dematerializa-
tion targets.
The climate policy role of business
In the lead up to the United Nations Climate Change Con-
ference (COP21) in December 2015, corporate carbon man-
agement commitments and initiatives rapidly accelerated
(Chan et al., 2018; Hsu et al., 2015). Major multinational
companies pledged to meet science-based carbon reduction
targets including achieving carbon neutral ‘net zero emis-
sions’. Firms from around the globe committed to 100 per
cent renewable energy sourcing to decarbonize their opera-
tions. Industry sectors introduced certification standards for
managing and mitigating carbon and achieving zero defor-
estation in their global supply chains. Many companies
including financial institutions trumpeted their intentions to
divest fossil fuel assets and set an internal price on carbon.
And newly formed industry-led coalition groups such as We
Mean Business and RE100 brought corporations together in
unprecedented numbers to encourage ambitious commit-
ments and to advocate for state-regulated global climate
policy.
Many celebrated the ‘Paris rise’as the achievement of a
tipping point whereby a critical mass of corporations across
all sectors stepped up to decarbonize their operations away
from fossil fuels and help drive forward a clean energy
economy. In many ways, the surge and ambition of the Paris
COP21 company announcements met precisely the appeal
governments, advocacy groups and governance scholars
had been making for over three decades: corporations are
major contributors to the global warming problem and
therefore need to be a part of the governance solution
(Hoffmann, 2011; Newell and Paterson, 2010). Climate
change governance experts agree that business measures
such as science-based reduction targets, carbon pricing,
renewable energy substitution and active support of strong
©2018 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Global Policy (2018) 9:4 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12618
Global Policy Volume 9 . Issue 4 . November 2018
538
Special Section Article
To continue reading
Request your trial