With 1,500 companies now estimated to have set net zero targets, corporate engagement with carbon dioxide removal (CDR) has gained substantial momentum. Yet despite the corporate sector becoming a key domain of CDR decision-making, corporates have not received research attention as influential actors in the governance of CDR. This paper provides a perspective on how corporates influence and enact de facto governance of CDR. We collate a preliminary evidence base regarding possible modes of CDR governance by corporates. Focusing on voluntary corporate engagement with CDR, we examine how and why firm-level decision-making takes place, and interrogate the implications of such activity. We find that the current literature focuses on techno-economic attributes of CDR solutions as drivers of corporate engagement; however, the ability for corporates to formulate a (business) case for engaging with CDR is potentially shaped by a broader array of financial and non-financial factors that are currently overlooked. This gives corporates the influence to define what and how to govern, an inherently “political act.” We finally highlight possible lenses for future research, noting lessons to be drawn from climate justice, anticipatory governance, responsible innovation, and futures literatures. These could provide a deepened understanding of the dynamics and implications of current de facto CDR governance, and allow this to be challenged where appropriate. Ultimately, without awareness and oversight of how CDR is being governed in the real world, policy and governance research may not be successful in driving us toward desired net zero futures.
Another Action Resource Centre project Rank Xerox has, like its American parent, Xerox Corporation, for the past four years, released individual employees for periods of up to six months to take part in community service, making available 66 man months each year. The opportunity has been taken up by employees at all levels. Some 40 people have been granted leave, and activities have ranged from assisting in administrating a leper colony in West Africa, to improving local amenities in the course of clearing a canal in the North of England. Particularly notable was the leave taken by a young lady who had, through family connections, acquired building skills. She went to Nigeria with her husband, also a company employee, to assist building a community centre somewhere in the Nigerian bush. She did the bricklaying and plastering, he did the labouring.
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