The political economy of the firm in global environmental governance.doc
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1、The Political Economy of the Firm in Global Environmental GovernancePeter Newell and David LevyEnvironmental issues provide a valuable lens through which to examine the question of global corporate power. Broader debates within IPE about private authority, the privatization of the U.N. and corporate
2、 social responsibility, to name a few, can be usefully informed by insights from environmental politics. Not only are corporations significantly responsible for generating global environmental degradation, but they are increasingly performing multiple roles associated with the management of environm
3、ental change. As experts, technology providers and investors, firms are in the frontline of day-to-day decision-making on environmental issues. Through lobbying and coalition-building they are also centrally located in regimes at the national and international level charged with establishing policie
4、s to contain and eventually reverse environmental degradation. It is unfortunate then that in looking at the role of corporations in the global political economy of the environment, we have a classic case of what Susan Strange would call mutual neglect. While theories of the firm continue to evolve
5、and generate interesting insights into inter- and intra-firm behavior on environmental issues, with a few exceptions, students of IPE have paid little attention to the global politics of the environment. Likewise, students of global environmental politics increasingly recognize the key role of corpo
6、rations as shapers, negotiators and implementers of environmental rules, but lack a sophisticated understanding of the firm in terms of its corporate strategy or role within the broader structures of political and economic power that occupy students of IPE.This chapter seeks to develop a political e
7、conomy framework to bridge this divide and to construct a more appropriate basis for conceptualizing the role of corporations in the organization of global environmental governance. This chapter draws on and develops previous work by the two authors, most notably Levy and Newell (2004). Combining wo
8、rk on the political economy of the firm with literatures on corporate strategy and environmental management, we challenge conventional writing on international environmental governance which neglects the role of corporations as shapers and negotiators of environmental rules as well as their central
9、position in informal governance of the environment that derives from their daily operations. The chapter explores the multiple and potentially conflicting roles that corporations perform as lobbyists, experts, (self) regulators and providers of the capital and technologies necessary to realize envir
10、onmental policy goals. Moving beyond debates about the extent to which they are greenwashing their activities as opposed to engaging in a serious attempt to achieve sustainable development, we assess the political significance of the corporation as an actor in global environmental governance. Firms
11、play diverse roles depending on, whether they are a multinational corporation (MNC) as opposed to a small/medium sized enterprise (SME), the region in which they are based, the sector in which they operate, their positioning with respect to particular markets and technologies, and the political stra
12、tegies they adopt. To illustrate this diversity, we draw on a range of empirical examples, from climate change and ozone depletion to biosafety and biodiversity; each issue arena is characterized by different sets of political relations and unique corporate strategies. These patterns of influence an
13、d representation have important implications for explaining the nature of current international environmental policy and its limitations, as well as important theoretical implications for how we are to understand the complex and competing roles that corporations play in the global political economy.
14、 By looking at the reciprocal relationship between corporate strategy and regimes of global governance, we develop a political economy of global environmental governance in which the corporations assumes a central role. The rise of the corporation in global environmental politicsBusiness plays a key
15、 role in international environmental politics. Corporations are engaged, directly or indirectly, in the environmental degradation which global regimes seek to manage, contain and eventually reverse. According to the Business Council for Sustainable Developments (BCSD) own figures, Industry accounts
16、for more than one third of energy consumed worldwide and uses more energy than any other enduser in industrialized and newly industrializing economies (Schmidheiny 1992: 43). At the same time, corporations can also serve as powerful engines of change, with the potential to redirect their substantial
17、 financial, technological, and organizational resources toward addressing environmental concerns.Regulators cannot afford to ignore corporations in the design of environmental governance. Corporate activity has substantial environmental consequences at every stage of the value chain, from research i
18、nto genetically engineered seeds, to the disposal of household and industrial waste. In many ways, managers of large firms are the street-level bureaucrats of environmental policy, Lipskys (1980) term to describe the role of frontline employees in shaping policy through its implementation on the gro
19、und. The active cooperation of large MNCs is therefore key to the implementation of environmental regulations and the amelioration of environmental problems. Industry appears to be increasingly aware of its role. The International Chamber of Commerce, an influential umbrella industry association, ha
20、s forcefully asserted industrys significance in the case of climate change, though these words would apply equally well to many other environmental issues:Industrys involvement is a critical factor in the policy deliberations relating to climate change. It is industry that will meet the growing dema
21、nds of consumers for goods and services. It is industry that develops and disseminates most of the worlds technology. It is industry and the private financial community that marshal most of the financial resources that fund the worlds economic growth. It is industry that develops, finances and manag
22、es most of the investments that enhance and protect the environment. It is industry, therefore, that will be called upon to implement and finance a substantial part of governments climate change policies (International Chamber of Commerce 1995).There has been a notable evolution in the nature of cor
23、porations engagement with environmental issues. From denials of culpability in environmental degradation and rejection of the need for regulation, most major corporations have come to both acknowledge increasing evidence of environmental degradation and accept the need for societal action to contain
24、 the process (Fischer and Schot 1993). Hoffman, for example, documents the changing attitudes of the chemical and petroleum industries in particular, towards environmental problems traced through the corporate media (Hoffman 1996). As a result of rising popular consciousness about environmental issu
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