Multinationals' Political Activities on Climate Change

Abstract

This paper explores the international dimensions of multinationals' corporate political activities, focusing on an international issue -climate change -that is being implemented differently in a range of countries. Analyzing data from FT Global 500 firms, it examines the influence on types and process of multinationals' political strategies, reckoning with institutional contexts and issue saliency.Findings show that the type of political activities can be characterized as an information strategy to influence policymakers towards market-based solutions, not so much withholding action on emission reduction. Moreover, multinationals pursue self-regulation, targeting a broad range of political actors.The process of political strategy is mostly one of collective action. International differences particularly surface in the type of political actors aimed at, with US and Australian firms focusing more on non-government actors (voluntary programs) than European and Japanese firms. Influencing home-country (not host-country) governments is the main component of international political strategy on climate change.

Strategies for Climate Change and Impression Management: A Case Study Among Canada’s Large Industrial Emitters

“…In 2010, they were responsible for 38 % of total GHG emissions in Canada (Environment Canada 2012a). In order to respond to increasing pressures from stakeholders, such companies generally develop information strategies aimed at influencing the decision-making process toward regulations which meet their expectations and enable them to improve their social image (Kolk and Pinkse 2007;MacKay and Munro 2012;Nyberg et al 2013).…”

“…Some studies on the subject have focused on information campaigns organized by emitters to influence public opinion and policy debates (e.g., Kolk and Pinkse 2007;Levy and Egan 2003;MacKay and Munro 2012;Nyberg et al 2013). It also appears that a number of companies issued official communications that misinformed stakeholders (MacKay and Munro 2012;Nyberg et al 2013).…”

Multinational enterprises and climate change: Exploring institutional failures and embeddedness

“…As climate change is a widely salient issue (Kolk & Pinkse, 2007), it has become rather difficult for MNEs to state unawareness of their contribution in terms of emissions. However, this has not led to informal constraints on firms to behave according to norms that would be conducive to mitigate the issue (Nilsson, von Borgstede, & Biel, 2004).…”

Corporate Environmental Performance and Lobbying

“…By disclosing information related to environmental strategies and performance, dirty firms can either demonstrate to stakeholders that they are clean (e.g., through greenwashing) (Lyon & Maxwell, 2011) or their intention to mitigate environmental harm and actions taken to this end (Clark & Crawford, 2012;Kolk & Pinkse, 2007).…”