Private Regulation, Institutional Entrepreneurship, and Climate Change : A Business History Perspective

• Private regulatory systems, including voluntary efforts by firms to restrain their own behavior are the primary form of global climate change governance. However when environmental challenges first rose up on the scientific and political agendas during the 1970s, the initial emphasis was on states and government regulation coordinated by the United Nations. This working paper provides a business history perspective how the privatization of global environmental governance happened and show how the system of private regulation was put in place before climate change became a priority issue. We argue that there were two separate paths which eventually merged. The first was the growth of certification schemes for emergent categories such as organic food, green buildings and sustainable investment which lacked definitions and legitimacy. Policy makers had no interest in them, or positively disliked them. Institutional entrepreneurs build institutions to create credibility and legitimacy. These entrepreneurs were drawn from outside big business, and were in some cases hostile to it. The second path was the growing engagement of big business pressure groups, notably the International Chamber of Commerce, in the environmental strategies of the United Nations. Institutional entrepreneurs were again important developing the arguments and concepts around business self-regulation. The two paths merged from the 1990s, as societal pressures for business to act on the environment have grown louder, so greenwashing, green-hushing, transition washing have diffused throughout global climate governance system. 

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Ekonomisk historia (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Economic History (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

climate change

environmental regulation

certification

business history.

Ekonomisk historia

Economic History

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