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Mitigating climate change – how do corporate strategies differ?

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  • Georg Weinhofer
  • Volker H. Hoffmann

Abstract

Many companies are facing increasing pressure by governments, shareholders and other stakeholders to reduce their CO2 emissions in order to mitigate climate change. The importance of managing CO2 emissions and crafting adequate CO2 strategies has increased for those companies affected. We present a framework that conceptualizes a company's CO2 strategy as the focus on one or a combination of several strategic objectives: CO2 compensation, CO2 reduction and carbon independence. In order to investigate the CO2 strategies of a worldwide sample of 91 electricity producers we perform a content analysis of their answers to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). We demonstrate the measures the companies take to manage their emissions, the CO2 strategies they adopt and antecedents that influence these strategies. We find that half of the companies take parallel emission management measures that aim at all three strategic objectives, while the other half pursue selected objectives only. We also find that companies with different CO2 strategies significantly differ in terms of regional affiliation, company size and absolute amount of CO2 emissions, while we could not identify a significant difference in relative CO2 emissions. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Suggested Citation

  • Georg Weinhofer & Volker H. Hoffmann, 2010. "Mitigating climate change – how do corporate strategies differ?," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(2), pages 77-89, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:bstrat:v:19:y:2010:i:2:p:77-89
    DOI: 10.1002/bse.618
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    References listed on IDEAS

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