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Comparing the Climate Change Actions, Targets and Performance of UK and US Retailers

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  • Rory Sullivan
  • Andy Gouldson

Abstract

It is often held that the UK has been something of a leader in its response to climate change, and that the USA has been more of a laggard. Whilst much of this debate relates to government policy, in this paper we consider whether this is true when it comes to corporate action on climate change. We use the retail sector to explore this question. This sector is important because of its own greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and because of the emissions it influences through its supply chains and value chains. On the basis of extensive reviews of corporate reports and other publically available data, we find that companies in the UK are some way ahead of their US counterparts in terms of the actions they are taking (in particular in relation to their willingness to focus on their supply‐chain‐related emissions), the ambition of the emission reduction targets that they are setting for themselves, and (while acknowledging the difficulties in making direct performance comparisons) the rates of improvement in their energy consumption and GHG emissions. We therefore conclude that at least some of the wider claims about the relative performance of the UK and the USA on climate change are mirrored in the manner in which corporations are responding to climate change. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

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  • Rory Sullivan & Andy Gouldson, 2016. "Comparing the Climate Change Actions, Targets and Performance of UK and US Retailers," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 23(3), pages 129-139, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:corsem:v:23:y:2016:i:3:p:129-139
    DOI: 10.1002/csr.1364
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Rory Sullivan, 2009. "The management of greenhouse gas emissions in large European companies," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 16(6), pages 301-309, November.
    2. Rory Sullivan & Andy Gouldson, 2007. "Pollutant release and transfer registers: examining the value of government‐led reporting on corporate environmental performance," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 14(5), pages 263-273, December.
    3. Rory Sullivan, 2010. "An assessment of the climate change policies and performance of large European companies," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(1), pages 38-50, January.
    4. Sullivan, Rory & Gouldson, Andy, 2013. "Ten years of corporate action on climate change: What do we have to show for it?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 733-740.
    5. Alastair Iles, 2007. "Seeing sustainability in business operations: US and British food retailer experiments with accountability," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(4), pages 290-301, May.
    6. Andy Gouldson & Rory Sullivan, 2007. "Corporate environmentalism: tracing the links between policies and performance using corporate reports and public registers," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(1), pages 1-11, January.
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    Cited by:

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    3. Wang, Derek D. & Sueyoshi, Toshiyuki, 2018. "Climate change mitigation targets set by global firms: Overview and implications for renewable energy," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 386-398.
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    5. Pii‐Tuulia Nikula, 2022. "Beyond compliance – Voluntary climate mitigation by New Zealand firms," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(5), pages 1456-1464, September.
    6. Muhammad Salman Asif & Henry Lau & Dilupa Nakandala & Youqing Fan & Hilal Hurriyet, 2022. "Case study research of green life cycle model for the evaluation and reduction of scope 3 emissions in food supply chains," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(4), pages 1050-1066, July.
    7. Francesca Dal Mas & William Tucker & Maurizio Massaro & Carlo Bagnoli, 2022. "Corporate social responsibility in the retail business: A case study," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(1), pages 223-232, January.
    8. Derek Wang, 2017. "A Comparative Study of Firm-Level Climate Change Mitigation Targets in the European Union and the United States," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-19, March.
    9. Claudia Gabriela Baicu & Olimpia State, & Daniel Adrian Gardan & Iuliana Petronela Gardan & Iulia Ruxandra Ticau, 2022. "Financial and Competitive Implications of the European Green Deal – Perceptions of Retail Managers," The AMFITEATRU ECONOMIC journal, Academy of Economic Studies - Bucharest, Romania, vol. 24(61), pages 683-683, August.

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