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Harvard Reference:

Allen, M.W. and Craig, C.A., 2016. Rethinking corporate social responsibility in the age of climate change: A communication perspective. International Journal of Corporate Social Responsibility, 1(1), pp.1-11. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1186/s40991-016-0002-8.

Review:

I chose the Allen and Craig (2016) article because it had a modern commentary on corporate social responsibility in view of climate change, which is increasingly a critical factor for both business and society. Other than traditional views of CSR as a peripheral, voluntaristic activity, this article shows that it is also strategic in these global environmental challenges. This makes the article, therefore, highly relevant to the focus of our group on CSR and sustainability, particularly with respect to how businesses need to make changes in order to better address climate risk.

The fact that this article has been published in the International Journal of Corporate Social Responsibility, a peer-reviewed journal guaranteeing quality academic standards, further raises its credibility. The authors, Myria W. Allen and Christopher A. Craig from the University of Arkansas, add further credibility because of their reputable standing with regard to communication and environmental dynamics. Of equal importance is the source-an open-access article that allows transparency for close scrutiny in helping to add further to its validity.

The article is current, pertinent, and discusses how businesses are changing their outlook regarding climate change from an option into a compelling must. Its insight into corporate transparency and stakeholder dialogue will be of particular use to understand how communication enables the work on CSR. Its sources are valid, like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change-IPCC-and the Paris Climate Agreement; hence, its accuracy is based on factually well-researched data.

In the end, the article clearly intends to review CSR in the context of the climate challenges without bias. The argument in this article is well-tempered as it explains how CSR can be a driving framework for businesses to pursue sustainability. Overall, it is a helpful tool to guide through what remains one of the key determinants in the change of modern corporate behavior.

Summary:

Allen and Craig's article "Rethinking Corporate Social Responsibility in the Age of Climate Change" gives a holistic review of how CSR needs to change in the face of climate change. One of the high points of the article is signaling, lying at the heart of communication around sustainability. That will provide further support for the view that communication is not only a means to improve corporate image but also to create holistic organizational change and good communication with the relevant stakeholders. Furthermore, when widely recognised global frameworks such as the Paris Climate Accord are applied, the arguments are even stronger and more relevant to practical life.

But what this article misses, probably, is an in-depth look into the practical obstacles that companies find when trying to implement their CSR strategies, above all in those less-developed regions. Due to the core being highly theoretical, sometimes it lacks the chance of proposing concrete steps or suggestions. This limitation notwithstanding, the article does provide illuminating insight into the juncture of communication and sustainability, hence it represents an important contribution in this field.

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Rethinking corporate social responsibility in the age of climate change: a communication perspective - International Journal of Corporate Social Responsibility

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In the winter of 2015 world leaders presented plans for keeping the global temperature rise below 2 °C due to projected climate change threats. These threats present organizations, communities, and citizens with the need to change viewing corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a voluntary luxury to being a necessity. This essay proposes refocusing CSR efforts in light of projected climate challenges and expanding our investigation into the role of communication in such efforts. Communication is more than a tool to craft a positive corporate image so as to gain or protect legitimacy. It is the means through which CSR sustainability-related initiatives are created and disseminated within organizations and among their key stakeholders (i.e., governments, communities, competitors, supply chains, employees). Suggestions for future research exploring CSR, sustainability, and communication are offered.

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What's the Role of Business in Confronting Climate Change?

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Harvard Reference:

Schenk, L. and Gerdeman, D. (2021). What’s the Role of Business in Confronting Climate Change? [online] HBS Working Knowledge. Available at: https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/whats-the-role-of-business-in-confronting-climate-change.

Review:

I chose this article because, in it, there is a critical investigation of what businesses can and must do to fight against climate change. As it has already been considered a threat to the whole world, business entities stand at a very crucial position in causing or mitigating the problem as important economic and social ones. This article reflects both corporations' ethical responsibilities and the market opportunities created by innovation driven by climate. Ethical reflection, combined with a financial carrot, thus renders it particularly relevant to discern the corporate responsibility for sustainability.

The article is credible, having been published by the highly regarded Harvard Business School, which has set the pace in leading business thought. Contributions by faculty members from Harvard further boost its reliability because, like in this case, they are recognized authorities in such fields as corporate strategy and sustainability. In addition, in the article, there are credible sources and current examples that support the analysis; hence, it is fact-based and reflects current industry trends. That makes sure the content is accurate and based on research.

Regarding bias and misinformation, the objectivity is maintained by giving a fair share of how businesses have contributed to the climate crisis and at the same time emphasizing that they are in a position to foster change. While it advocates for the corporate involvement in the fight against climate change, neither does it sidestep the complications nor, for that matter, the challenges of transition toward sustainability. The intent is pretty clear: to inspire leaders into taking meaningful activities. It focuses on both responsibility and opportunity, making this source purposeful and valid to examine this critical issue.

Summary:

Henderson's article, "What's the Role of Business in Confronting Climate Change? ", presents a very strong rationale as to why businesses should be at the cutting edge in confronting climate change. The strength of the article lies in its optimistic view: a scenario where companies can shift from being part of an environmental problem to Merkel-commended solution-providers of sustainability. Henderson reinforces the capability of businesses to innovate-reducing carbon emissions while teaming up with governments.

This foresightedness now gels well with the contemporary global view on sustainability and offers a realistic framework for corporate action. The article would, however, be more of a beneficial read if there were deeper explorations into some of the challenges companies face in implementing sustainable practices, especially industries that are fossil fuel-intensive. Although Henderson gives good examples of businesses that are already taking great strides, a lack of critical discussion over obstacles diminishes the scope of the article. Nevertheless, it sets out quite well in proving that businesses can make a difference through proactive environmental strategies.

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The 26 th annual United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties, also known as COP26, ended with a hard-fought pact that called on businesses and governments to meet their climate change goals faster.

The event followed an August report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that not only amplified the reality that climate change is rapidly intensifying, but signaled a responsibility and opportunity to change course.

We asked Harvard Business School faculty affiliated with the Business & Environment Initiative what role business leaders should have in addressing climate change, and what business opportunities could emerge from efforts to mitigate and adapt to it. This is what they said:

Lauren Cohen: Fund environmental innovation

The recent IPCC climate report highlights two central findings:

1. There are considerable "unknown unknowns" in the future of climate change, and that these unknown unknowns may in fact represent the largest drivers of both climate change, and optimal solutions to address it.

2. And that governments alone-along with ultimately unenforceable pledges by those governments-will be insufficient to solve these challenges, necessitating an even larger role for private markets than first thought.

Combining both findings, we need to create a flexible system that can adapt and allocate capital nimbly as these unknown unknowns arise and take prominence. The best way to do this will be through a combination of flexible ex-ante incentives, along with ex-post mechanisms to reallocate resources quickly. Namely, sequential, staged-round funding in environmental innovation should form a bedrock of all solutions proposed, from public to private capital funding.
Lauren Cohen the L.E. Simmons Professor in the Finance & Entrepreneurial Management Units.
Boris Vallée: Make decarbonization profitable

Two words come to my mind when thinking about business leaders and the climate crisis we are facing: responsibility and opportunity. Businesses have been a large source of carbon emissions themselves, and maybe even more importantly, businesses have been (and often still are) advocating for actions and behaviors that are highly carbon intensive. Then, there is also mounting evidence that certain business leaders have been actively concealing important research, lobbying to undermine regulatory efforts, and attempting to influence the scientific consensus and the public opinion on the impact of human actions on climate.

The responsibility of the business world in the situation we are in is therefore immense and unquestionable, and reminds us that capitalism is a means and not an end, and should be treated as such.
Boris Vallée is the Torstein Hagen Associate Professor of Business Administration in the Finance Unit.
But by the same token, businesses can have a disproportionate impact in addressing the current situation, as capitalism is an extremely powerful engine that can operate with agility. If enough will is put into aligning profit with decarbonization, business leaders should be able to drive large scale impact while generating an abundance of profitable business opportunities. The awareness to the need for this alignment is rising among both business leaders and investors, but we need to turbocharge it if we want to have a shot at avoiding the worst.

John Macomber: Combine forces to increase impact

COP26 in Glasgow makes it clear that global political leaders will not be able to coordinate a big worldwide response to climate and economic pressures. Therefore, society will need to make choices at every level and in almost every location-from homeowner to business to investor to government-about what to protect, when to plan for rebound and recovery, and what assets-and individuals-to not protect in the face of river flooding, wildfire, storm surge, and drought.

Business leaders, including capital providers, can work to preserve shared value so that we the people aren't all hurt by chaos in the decades ahead. This involves thoughtful benefit-cost analysis that looks into a future where the exposures are uncertain, and also not evenly distributed.

The best investors, operators, innovators, and policymakers will assess probabilities of the perils as they evolve over time. They will fully count the value of co-benefits in public health and environmental justice as they filter their opportunities in construction, finance, engineering, sensors, and climate risk modeling.
John Macomber (@cleantechcities) is a senior lecturer and co-author of Healthy Buildings: How Indoor Spaces Drive Performance and Productivity.
Crucially, the most competitive districts and cities will figure out ways for many sources of capital to combine forces, region by region, toward coordinated long-view responses. This will lead to measurably better results for whole communities than can obtained just by diffuse investments in scattered pockets of resilience. The laggards, in contrast, will see value destroyed and they will fall behind.

Business leaders have two roles in this extraordinary moment. The first is to move as fast as possible to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from their own operations and from their supply chains. It's increasingly clear that many firms can cut their emissions by as much as 50 percent relatively quickly and see a strong return on capital as they do so.
Rebecca Henderson (@RebeccaReCap) is the John and Natty McArthur University Professor and author of Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire. Joseph Lassiter is the Senator John Heinz Professor of Management Practice in Environmental Management, Retired.
Trane Technologies, for example, has committed to taking a gigaton of carbon out of their customers' operations by upgrading their HVAC equipment-and is confident that everyone will make money in the process.

The second is to support effective climate regulation. Decarbonizing the world's economy requires rebuilding not only the entire electric power industry, but also transportation, infrastructure, construction and agriculture. Action by individual firms can take us a long way, but we won't solve the problem of climate change without building real partnerships between the public and private sector to ensure that everyone has the skills-and the incentives!-to reduce their emissions. Climate change threatens the health of the entire economy. Business can lead the way by insisting that politicians act now to ensure our future.

Rapidly lowering fossil carbon emissions, while incredibly important to many, must not allow us to ignore the urgent immediate needs of much of humanity. The world needs abundant quantities of clean, 24x7x365, reliable, geopolitically secure and affordable energy NOW to revitalize and redesign the stagnant industries in the developed worked and to relieve and redress the human suffering in the developing world. There has to be a politically realistic path from the realities of the present to the promise of the future that meets the urgent, immediate concerns of those whose voices are often too easily downplayed or even ignored in the drive for a net-zero future.
is the John G. McLean Professor of Business Administration in the Finance Unit.
Shawn Cole: Bolster impact investing

Business leaders should embrace evolving capital markets, and seek to communicate to investors how their businesses will navigate the upcoming climate transition. We are seeing significantly greater commitment from both asset owners and asset managers to engage with management to seek meaningful change.
Max Bazerman (@BazermanMax) is the Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration and author of Better, Not Perfect: A Realist's Guide to Maximum Sustainable Goodness.
This was perhaps most clear recently when Engine No. 1, a new impact investing firm with a tiny stake in ExxonMobil (less than $50 million), succeeded in a proxy contest to place three new directors on the board of what was once the largest corporation in the world. They couldn't have succeeded without the support of BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard.

While disclosure is and will continue to be important, businesses must dramatically reduce their carbon footprint to stave off the worst effects of climate change. Companies with compelling strategies will attract capital on attractive terms.
Lynda Applegate is the Baker Foundation Professor and the Sarofim-Rock Professor of Business Administration, Emerita.
Max Bazerman: Lead with moral conviction

Moral leaders have an obligation to accept science, and identify the role that they are playing in climate change. Moral leaders have an obligation to consider factors beyond profit maximization. Those other factors should include the rights of future generations. And, moral leaders have an obligation to think about how they can change not only their own behavior, but how they can influence the behavior of those whom they lead.

The planet is in trouble and we need a combination of science, technology, community relationships and innovation to fix it. I have been conducting research and developing curriculum materials on innovative approaches to addressing the climate change crisis through a combination of sustainable energy technology innovation and partnership ecosystem development approaches since 2015. One of my earliest cases explored the launch of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies through a partnership ecosystem that included entrepreneurial startups, government agencies, and scientists.

More recently, I completed a case on the launch of a Conservation Innovation Center through a partnership ecosystem led by nonprofit conservation firms (including the Chesapeake Conservancy and the Lincoln Land Trust), technology companies (including Microsoft's and the Environmental Systems Research Institute's AI for Earth initiative), government agencies (including the Department of Agriculture and Forest Services and the US Department of the Interior), prominent nongovernmental organizations (including The Nature Conservancy and the National Parks Conservation), and the World Bank.

Another recent case examines the launch of Powerley, a new technology start-up that was launched as a partnership between DTE-an electric utility in Michigan-and Vectorform-a digital innovation consultancy and software platform provider. The Powerley case deals with how to create a platform to link the "voice of the consumer" to data from smart grids and other smart home/smart city data sources. These cases emphasize the need for partnerships and innovation as core to solving the climate crisis.

Lynn Schenk is director of the HBS Business & Environment Initiative and Dina Gerdeman is senior editor of Working Knowledge. [Image: iStockphoto/AsiaVision]

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What's the Role of Business in Confronting Climate Change?

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COP26 shined a light on the complexities of addressing the climate crisis. We asked Harvard Business School faculty members to discuss how business leaders can help spur change and what opportunities might emerge.

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Harvard Reference:

Afzali, M., Colak, G., & Vähämaa, S. (2024). Climate Change Denial and Corporate Environmental Responsibility. Journal of Business Ethics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-024-05625-y

Review:

This article was selected due to its pointed relevance at the current moment, particularly in light of the CER meeting and societal perceptions regarding climate change. The study offers needed insight into the capability of geographical variations in climate change denial to influence corporate behavior as an intrinsic element of contemporary business sustainability. This paper relies heavily on empirical evidence, using U.S. firms as a case study, which enables an in-depth study of this phenomenon through quantitative methods, making it a reliable source of information about the dependency of CER on regional socio-political factors.

Their affiliations are renowned institutions of learning, as expected: the Hanken School of Economics, the University of Sussex, and the University of Vaasa, thus giving much academic weight to the paper.

The article is published in the Journal of Business Ethics, a prestigious and peer-reviewed journal, which automatically enhances the credibility and academic standing of the article. Second, the authors use institutional theory-an analytical framework whose theory is widely recognized for explaining corporate behavior in relation to influences from external society.

The information sources are from renowned bodies, including MSCI ESG ratings and the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, hence increasing the accuracy and legitimacy of the article. The analysis is based on recent sophisticated statistical methods of analysis, namely, principal component analysis and entropy balancing; hence, it strongly supports its result. The comprehensiveness of such techniques helps to solve endogeneity problems and thus increases the reliability of the results.

The purpose of the article, therefore, is to empirically investigate the relationship between local climate change denial and CER. It further investigates whether corporate governance and culture can moderate this relationship and, as such, offers a valuable contribution to both academic literature and corporate policy. In this respect, the dual focus of this article on theory and practical implications provides an important contribution to discussions of corporate ethics, sustainability, and governance.

Summary:

This paper discusses how regional climate change denial affects the environmental performance of firms in the U.S.A. The results indicate that environmental performance for those companies in high denial regions is worse, with higher incidences of violations translating into greater environmental costs. One great strength of the paper is that the study uses regional data; thus, it offers new information on how local beliefs shape corporate behavior. Used data is quite comprehensive; hence, the analysis is robust and reliable.

Yet, with a focus on the U.S., it has very limited relevance to other regions of the world that have different cultural or political settings. Secondly, although the authors do point out that strong corporate governance could reduce the negative impacts related to climate denial, the text does not delve deep into how mechanisms of governance work in practice. These recognised limitations notwithstanding, the paper develops an effective case regarding the centrality of local perceptions in motivating corporate environmental responsibility and, by implication, constitutes a contribution to knowledge about sustainability issues.

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Climate Change Denial and Corporate Environmental Responsibility - Journal of Business Ethics

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This paper examines whether corporate environmental responsibility is influenced by regional differences in climate change denial. While there is an overwhelming consensus among scientists that climate change is happening, recent surveys still indicate widespread climate change denial across societies. Given that corporate activity causing climate change is fundamentally rooted in individual beliefs and societal institutions, we examine whether local perceptions about climate change matter for firms’ engagement in environmental responsibility. We use climate change perception surveys conducted in the U.S. to compute a novel measure of climate change denial for each U.S. county. We find that firms located in counties with higher levels of climate change denial have weaker environmental performance ratings, are more likely to commit environmental violations, and impose greater environmental costs on society. Regional differences in religiosity, social capital, political leaning, or county-level demographic characteristics cannot explain these results. Furthermore, we document that strong corporate governance mechanisms and corporate culture moderate the negative relationship between climate change denial and corporate environmental responsibility. Overall, our findings offer new insights into how local beliefs and perceptions about climate change may influence firm-level sustainability practices.

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Harvard Reference:

Unsworth, K.L., Russell, S.V., & Davis, M.C. (2016). Is Dealing with Climate Change a Corporation’s Responsibility? A Social Contract Perspective. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1212. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01212

Review:

The reason this article has been selected is because it deals with corporate responsibility regarding taking care of climate change, and that directly pertains to the subtopic given to the group about climate change. The investigation into corporate responsibility through the perspective of social contracts offers a new means of approaching business accountability in terms of environmental sustainability.

One of the reasons that made me find this article credible is the quality of its publication source, Frontiers in Psychology, which is an esteemed and peer-reviewed journal. The respective authors are researchers at esteemed institutions, including the University of Leeds, and are funded by the Australian Government; hence, further credence can be given to the work. With 1066 respondents from all around Australia, the study's sample is quite large, which means that the results are applicable and may even be generalizable to other similar scenarios.

Relevance-wise, the essay primarily focuses on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and how it relates to environmental challenges, particularly climate change.

This has been a major concern in recent times since firms are under increasing pressure to develop sustainable operations. Further, the article puts weight on how CSR is affected by public perception mainly concerning the regulation of environmental policies by the government, and that relates to the current events worldwide focusing on climate policies and corporate accountability.

Besides, the study provides profound analyses in respect of bias, especially those touching on the impact of free-market ideology. This scholarship into the ways in which political ideologies bear on perceptions about corporate accountability helps me see how diverse ideological orientations might lead to differential responses to climate change initiatives. Also, since the article delves into issues of bias and misinformation-things which we have discussed in our workshops-I find it quite relevant with regard to this assignment.

Summary:

Using a social contract framework to the question of corporate responsibility for climate change-informed by over 1,000 respondents-this article finds that belief in human-caused climate change strongly influences views on corporate responsibility for climate mitigation, while free-market ideology hinders support for corporate regulation. A major strength of the article is its thorough investigation of the role societal beliefs play in shaping corporate obligations. It successfully highlights the ideological barriers posed by free-market proponents, offering valuable insights into the conflict between economic and environmental goals. However, the study’s reliance on a cross-sectional survey limits its ability to establish causality, and some measures, such as climate change belief, could have been more detailed. Additionally, it does not fully address how to overcome the tension between free-market ideology and climate responsibility, limiting its practical applicability. Overall, the article contributes meaningfully to discussions on corporate responsibility and climate change.

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Frontiers | Is Dealing with Climate Change a Corporation’s Responsibility? A Social Contract Perspective

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In this paper, we argue that individuals – as members of society – play an important role in the expectations of whether or not companies are responsible for…

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Harvard Reference:

Michetti, M., Marchello M.P and Lupo Stanghellini P (2008). Climate Change, Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility: the Role of Financial Institutions. [online] ResearchGate. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/224000475_Climate_Change_Sustainability_and_Corporate_Social_Responsibility_the_Role_of_Financial_Institutions.

Article Review:

This article examines the damage caused by climate change and the risks to the global economic system, highlighting the potential for serious losses to insurers and bankers. Financial institutions are responsible for two tasks: advancing the low-carbon economy and addressing financial problems related to climate change. The article addresses this situation from five different perspectives. The first section focuses on actions to reduce CO2 emissions, then discusses ethical issues related to climate change. It also covers CSR measures regarding climate change that banks offer and presents the results of these programs.

The article says that the reason why the success of carbon emission trading is so prominent today is project financing. and the article also says that the sectors most affected by climate change are banking and insurance, while many other sectors are also negatively affected. On the other hand, financial institutions should actively monitor these financial risks to minimize some risks, and in case of the opposite, they should be prevented immediately. is required. To reduce these risks, instruments such as weather derivatives and catastrophe bonds and weather derivatives are recommended.

While 43% of European banks engage in social and environmental risk capital, the article notes that only a minority are running sustainable initiatives. The increasing pressure from stakeholders for transparency and accountability reflects the growing awareness of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the banking sector. The paper establishes a direct link between banks’ efforts to reduce CO2 emissions and their commitment to CSR.

However, the review could be improved by including specific case studies that demonstrate the successful implementation of these strategies. It could also explore the barriers that prevent banks from adopting more sustainable practices and suggest workable solutions.

Key points:

According to the paper, collaboration between financial institutions is essential in developing a sustainability indicator that links financial performance to social and governance standards. Its strength currently lies in providing transparency and accountability in the financial sector in line with global environmental and social change goals. The emphasis is on innovation in sustainable finance and ethical investment as a way forward in combating climate change.

A shortcoming, however, is the lack of practical examples or case studies on how these collaborative efforts can be effectively implemented across a wide range of financial environments. It could have done a bit more research into the challenges banks face in adopting such measures for sustainability. While the paper provides a great framework to encourage various stakeholders to work towards sustainability, its conclusion is very helpful in understanding the changing role of financial institutions in promoting environmental responsibility.

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Harvard Reference:

Li, S., Cheng, W., Li, J. and Shen, H. (2021). Corporate Social Responsibility Development and Climate Change: Regional Evidence of China. Sustainability, [online] 13(21), p.11859. doi:https://doi.org/10.3390/su132111859.

Article Review:

This article looks at 4 main topics It starts by assessing the quality of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting and starts with the increase in corporate social responsibility disclosures and. It continues by examining the internal and external factors that influence CSR practices. The reason for starting these investigations was the development of corporate social responsibility and the impact of climate change in China.

This article also presents a report, and in the summary of this report, CSR is not much emphasized in developing countries, it is not even presented as a requirement, and sometimes it is even left as an option. As we mentioned, in such countries, the first one is optional and the second one is seen as mandatory. Since China is also a developing country, CSR progress in China remains limited. The research lasted 13 years (2006-2019) and this research showed the evolution of CSR statements over time by analyzing it from four different perspectives. And this article was generally completed by John Elkington. and environmental, social and economic issues in general are discussed

Whereas the CSR initiatives increased until the year 2010, many companies faced a standstill of about 25% after that. Explaining the issue in more detail, most firms were only able to attain the standards of GRI by 30% capability. The situation tells that the improvement methods or strategies regarding the implementation of corporate social responsibility in China are urgent, and more transparency and compliance with international standards are of prime importance since they play a high role in sustainable development and combating climate change. Companies can actually contribute a great deal to combining environmental sustainability with social responsibility for the betterment of the socio-economic environment in China through well-structured corporate social responsibility initiatives. This would also be more relevant to the stakeholder community, thus enabling more innovations and collaborations toward sustainability and improvement of mechanisms of corporate governance in the country. This would probably create a pathway for better frameworks of CSR that might take firms toward green technologies and value chains for positive contribution to local communities and the environment..

Key Points:

It also examines the trends and problems that CSR disclosures and practices had to go through during the period in China, showing stagnation after 2010 with little GRI standard-compliance practice. Another strength of this study is the elaboration on how regulatory frameworks affect corporate environmental responsibility and their interaction with local practices. Regulatory reform areas for better corporate accountability are focused, and this article highlights more on how Chinese firms can be aligned to global sustainability goals.

Nevertheless, this study is anchored in descriptive statistics, and more critical analysis would provide a better basis for recommendations on deterrents to CSR compliance. Also, while it emphasizes the requirements of mechanisms in governance, if possible, it should seek to provide concrete, actionable ways in which CSR practices may be improved. These limitations notwithstanding, the article makes an invaluable contribution to making sense of the role of corporate behavior in advancing environmental sustainability in China.

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School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

Stuart School of Business, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL 60616, USA

College of Public Management, Guizhou University of Finance and Economics, Guiyang 550025, China

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

1. Introduction and Literature Review

According to the United Nations, the impact of global climate change is unprecedented in scale. Without appropriate and immediate action, we will face increasingly severe issues including shortages in food, rising sea levels, floods, droughts and extreme weather (The Global Issues of Climate Change, United Nations. Available at https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/climate-change (accessed on 11 September 2021)). Climate change is mainly caused by greenhouse gases, two thirds of which are carbon dioxide generated from burning fossil fuels. To fight climate change, effective climate actions require serious engagement and commitment of governments and businesses [ 1]. Companies' CSR practices can play a key role in promoting sustainable development by reducing carbon emissions [ 2, 3]. Nowadays, increasingly more stakeholders consider CSR a necessity rather than a voluntary luxury [ 4].

The most classic and adopted CSR concept is John Elkington's "triple bottom lines", including economic, social and environmental perspectives [ 5]. CSR practices are currently well adopted by companies in developed countries, but not in developing countries [ 6]. However, in the developing countries which have adopted CSR, it is formulated more as mandatory regulations than voluntary actions [ 7]. Furthermore, for the last several decades, CSR disclosure has also been supported by legitimacy theory, which is based on the concept of social contract. In this theory, businesses operate in society via a social contract, expressed or implied, whereby their survival and growth are based on: (1) the delivery of some socially desirable ends to the society in general, and (2) the distribution of economic, social or political benefits to groups from which they derive their power [ 8, 9]. This theory is still viable nowadays and has the great potential to be improved by adding more CSR disclosure vehicles [ 10]. To address the issue of whether businesses take environmental protection as their core concern of CSR, scholars from both developed and developing economies have conducted a great deal of research. The internal roles of firms such as attitude to legislation, audit, economic rationality, community expectations, threats and available investments are crucial for CSR disclosure [ 11, 12]. UK firms' disclosure shows that firms' sector determines the different degree of the implementation of environmental projects [ 13]. Research on Canadian and French firms shows that media visibility, firm size and regulation play important roles in firms' environmental disclosure [ 14, 15]. Research on Spanish firms highly proposes regulations [ 16], while research on Irish firms argues that NGOs could largely facilitate the quality of sustainable disclosure [ 17]. Firms with improved environmental governance could have better risk management, corresponding to legitimacy theory [ 18, 19], and especially for larger enterprises, NGOs push them to carry out environmental practices and, in turn, obtain benefits in financing, corresponding to visibility theory [ 20]. The results of research on Malaysian businesses emphasize the importance of regulation, thus advocating legitimacy theory rather than principal-agent theory [ 21, 22]. Moreover, consumers' social values have also pushed firms to take environmental responsibility, supporting legitimacy theory in a different way [ 23]. Macroscopically, there is a positive correlation between the Human Development Index (HDI) of countries and the reduction in carbon emissions. Countries with a higher HDI such as the UK, Australia and Germany have stricter regulations, while those with a lower HDI do not [ 24]. However, though regulations and pressures from society positively ameliorate the problems of environmental protection, this achievement may be arguably at the expense of firm values [ 25].

As for the problem of environmental issues related to greenhouse gas (GHG) or carbon emissions, the current research interests are mainly in developed economies [ 26, 27, 28, 29]. However, developing countries are catching up quickly [ 25, 30, 31, 32]. Meanwhile, quantitative research is relatively rare in the field of CSR towards carbon emission reduction [ 33]. Theoretically, CSR positively influences recycling rates, and more CSR could induce a greater reduction in carbon emissions per unit product [ 3]. However, in a nutshell, empirical findings are mostly negative. The results of research on Italian firms show that environmental committees, institutional holders and board independence are the important factors to facilitate carbon efficiency, especially for firms belonging to high-pollution industries. However, other studies claim that carbon reduction practices basically do not work, and firms generally tend to "watch and see" how regulations change [ 33, 34, 35]. Though government pressure and firms' visibility make a difference, which supports legitimacy theory [ 36, 37], firms' reports are still suspicious and misleading [ 36, 38, 39]. In South Korea, the situation is even worse since firms with high CSR ratings are emitting more GHGs, and this relationship tends to be more significant if the firm size becomes larger, thus questioning the mechanism of reporting CSR [ 30]. Meanwhile, some scholars report that firms have no internal pressure on increasing carbon efficiency [ 32].

In the Chinese context, the research on CSR as well as environmental protection is gradually flourishing, as China has long become the largest carbon emitter, with the level of per capita emission at the same range as Japan and the EU, according to the Emissions Gap Report of 2019 by the UN [ 40]. China will play the most important role in shaping global affairs. Thus, the effort to curb climate change would be useless without China's inclusion [ 31, 41, 42]. CSR concepts were introduced to China by multinational corporations in 1996 [ 43]. From 1996 to 2005, while CSR was still under development, China published or modified a series of laws to protect labor rights and the environment [ 44, 45]. In 2006, CSR was officially regulated by the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) and Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE), both supervised by the Chinese Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC). Ecological modernization concerning environmental issues is forming in China, supporting legitimacy theory as well [ 46]. However, despite the regulation of CSR, there is still a long way for China to go in progressing in protecting the environment and reducing carbon emissions [ 47, 48]. Many researchers maintain that company state ownership increases CSR disclosure [ 49, 50, 51, 52]. Other than the ownership status, some researchers argue that companies with better performance are more likely to publish CSR reports [ 53]. Others expand the factors to size, profitability, industry [ 54], financial structure [ 55] and competition with peers [ 56]. The regional imbalance is another area in which scholars are interested. There is a big disparity in resource allocation among provinces [ 57]. Wealthier provinces measured by GDP per capita emit more carbon dioxide than less wealthy ones, though they have similar per capita emissions [ 58, 59]. How provincial governments and firms can work together is not clear in China. The existing literature shows that regulations and green market competitions will lead to carbon emission reduction [ 60, 61]. CSR regulations and climate policies should be highly related to each other and push companies to use environmental strategies [ 62, 63].

For our study, we focused on the extent to which Chinese firms' CSR disclosure practices have developed since 2006 and their impact on carbon emissions, by using quantitative methods with panel data analysis at both the firm and province levels. We would like to address two research questions. First, what factors affect CSR activities at the firm level? Second, do these activities affect climate change, measured by carbon emissions at the regional level? We used regression analysis and panel data analysis to study these two research questions. The rest of this paper is structured as follows. Section 2 introduces the data; Section 3 presents the analysis and results, and Section 4 concludes with a discussion.

2. Data and Methods

2.1. Firm-Level Data

Our first research objects are the companies listed in the Shenzhen Stock Exchange and Shanghai Stock Exchange which published CSR reports from 2006 to 2019, and we label them as CSR companies. We assumed that companies which did not publish CSR reports did not engage in CSR activity. Though it is possible that some companies have conducted CSR projects but have not disclosed them, we do not think this possibility will cause a big problem. Since CSR is good for reputation, firms must want to let the public know. Therefore, such a possibility should be in a transitioning state and should not relate to too many companies. Basically, the total number of CSR activities represents a company's effort in following CSR regulations, while the number of environmental protection measures represents a company's effort in reducing its carbon emissions and pollution. We collected companies' annual financial report and CSR report data from the China Stock Market & Accounting Research (CSMAR) database from 2006 to 2019. Table 1 shows the variable definitions.

Following the regulation documents, Shenzhen Stock Exchange Social Responsibility Instructions to Listed Companies and Notice of Doing a Better Job for Disclosing 2008 Annual Reports, the CSR report data included: (1) protection of the interests of shareholders and creditors, (2) protection of employee interests, (3) protection of the interests of suppliers, customers and consumers, (4) environmental protection and sustainable development, (5) public relations and social welfare services and (6) safe production. We found that projects of safe production are similar to projects of employee protection and combined these two categories into staff protection by adding their numbers of CSR projects together. Therefore, the dependent variables consisted of these 5 variables of CSR disclosure. Then, we established two groups of independent variables: (1) internal characteristics including (a) years since the firm was established which reflects company experience since being established (Age), years since the firm became publicly listed (List Exp) and years since the firm started disclosing its CSR activity (CSR Exp), (b) the education level of employees (High Edu and Mid Edu) and (c) state ownership (SOE); (2) external characteristics including GRI, CSR certification and CSR mandatory disclosure requirements, which measure firms' disclosure effort. Moreover, we established the variables of firm size, revenue, tax, cash and profit to control firms' characteristics. Table 2 presents the descriptive statistics. There are 6295 firm-years under research, but due to missing data, only 4518 firm-years have information of their employee education level, and their numbers of CSR projects vary a lot, with the mean slightly above five, the minimum as one and the maximum as 39. Basically, the staff and environment are the two main concerns of companies. Though it could be seen that the mean age of these firms is not young, the education level of their employees is not that high. This also indicates a low level of state ownership, GRI rate and audit rate. Later, we present a thorough figure analysis of this information in Section 3.

2.2. Provincial-Level Data

Secondly, we focused on how CSR is associated with provincial carbon reduction, and thus we collected provincial macroeconomic data from the National Bureau of Statistics of China from 2006 to 2019 with fossil fuel data from 2006 to 2017 due to the lag of data disclosure. Table 3 shows the variable definition.

Basically, we calculated provincial carbon emissions based on provincial fossil fuel consumption according to the following formula: carbon emissions (metric tons) = 1.647 *coal (metric tons) + 2.848 *hard coke (metric tons) + 3.045 *gasoline (metric tons) + 3.174 *kerosene (metric tons) + 3.15 *diesel (metric tons) + 3.064 *heating oil (metric tons) + 21.67 *natural gas (10,000 cubic meters) [ 64]. Then, we used CO ₂ emissions per million RMB GDP to represent the provincial sustainable economic development level. For independent variables, the percentage of CSR companies in a province, the average number of CSR projects and the percentage of CSR environment protection projects reflect the provincial CSR adoption rate, CSR companies' CSR effort and CSR companies' environmental protection effort, respectively. We also used the ratio of CSR companies' total assets to the provincial GDP to indicate the economic influence of CSR companies. For the control variables, the GDP per capita reflects the socioeconomic situation of provinces, population measures the pressure of development, and the ratio of total imports and exports to the GDP indicates provinces' involvement in international businesses. Table 4 presents the provincial descriptive statistics.

2.3. Methods

Compared with similar studies about Chinese CSR, the data in this paper are the most current and cover a larger time period. The role of company age and state ownership has been researched [ 65, 66], and we want to further explore what roles list experience and CSR experience play in affecting the CSR disclosure scale. Further, to our knowledge, no research has touched the effect of employee education, GRI, audit and mandate disclosure requirements for Chinese companies. Additionally, we chose controlling variables that are similar to those used in existing studies [ 30, 50, 53, 65, 66]. The hypotheses are summarized as follows:

The CSR project scale increases while the values of the internal factors (company age, list experience, CSR disclosure experience, employee education, state ownership) increase.

The CSR project scale increases while the values of the external factors (GRI, audit, mandate) increase.

Carbon emissions decrease while the CSR project scale increases.

To test the above hypotheses, we ran three panel regressions, which are presented in Section 3. Since the independent variables to test hypothesis H1a have a multicollinearity issue, we first used principal component analysis to extract the principal components accounting for 90% of the variation. For the other two hypotheses, we ran panel regression directly.

3. Analysis and Results

3.1. CSR Development in China

First, we show the development of CSR disclosure in China. Figure 1 demonstrates how CSR grew from 2006 to 2019. We found a fast CSR disclosure growth from 2006 to 2010, and then it stayed at around 25% of the total companies listed. The fast early growth is associated with CSR regulation and mandatory CSR disclosure. The slow growth from 2010 may indicate that companies lacked incentives to launch CSR projects or adopt CSR disclosure systems. Figure 2 shows the quality of CSR disclosure in China. We found that the percentage of CSR reports following the Global Reporting Initiative Standard (GRI) increased over the years but was still below 30% in 2019. Furthermore, the percentage of CSR reports being audited by a third party was under 5% during most of the studied time period.

Second, we present the types of CSR projects of CSR disclosure activities from 2006 to 2019. Figure 3 shows a clear growth trend in the total number of CSR projects disclosed, with staff protection and environment protection projects being the most reported types. However, the average number of CSR projects disclosed per report stayed at around 4.5 from 2013 to 2019. This indicates that the growing number of total CSR projects is due to the growing number of CSR companies.

Third, we explore the socioeconomic environment under which the companies were operating. Table A1 (in Appendix A) summarizes the GDP per capita, number of CSR companies and number of CSR projects disclosed in 30 provinces, excluding Tibet, in 6 regions. We found that in provinces with a higher GDP per capita, there were more CSR companies in operation and more CSR projects disclosed. The gap in CSR development between more developed areas, such as the north, east and south-central regions, and less developed areas, such as the northeast, southwest and northwest regions, is large. Figure 4 shows the regional CSR development from 2006 to 2019. The east region led in the growth of the number of CSR companies, total number of CSR projects disclosed and CSR environment protection projects, followed by the north and south-central regions, while CSR development in the other three regions was much slower.

Finally, we explain the connections between company CSR behavior and regional carbon emission trends. According to some theoretical studies, more CSR will result in less carbon emissions [ 3], which is the relation we want to explore. Figure 5 shows how the provinces are posited according to their carbon emission efficiency (metric tons per million RMB GDP) with regard to four indicators: (a) GDP per capita, (b) percentage of CSR companies, (c) average CSR environmental projects disclosed per CSR company and (d) natural logarithm of total CSR company assets (RMB) in 2017. We found that most provinces are more likely to cluster in their regions. Richer provinces with a higher GDP per capita are more likely to have lower carbon emissions per unit. Some provinces might have higher percentages of CSR companies and more CSR environmental disclosure, but their carbon emission efficiency is not necessarily higher. Furthermore, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong, which represent the economic centers of the north, east and south-central regions, respectively, have the highest numbers of total CSR company assets. The fact that the best carbon emission efficiency was found in these three provinces is probably because their CSR companies are much larger than those in other provinces.

3.2. CSR Disclosure Behavior

In the above sections, we observed some interesting phenomena and performed statistical analysis. Further, in this section, we run regressions with panel data to test how companies' characteristics impact their CSR disclosure behavior. The variables are shown in Section 2. In advance, we expected the following: companies will disclose more CSR projects when their (1) experience increases, (2) employees are better educated, (3) state ownership increases and (4) disclosure effort increases. Firm experience, state ownership and all control variables are supported by the previous literature [ 65]. To our knowledge, firms' disclosure effort and employees' educational level have not been tested in the literature yet. Specifically, we explore how these two factors impact firms' disclosure behavior.

Then, we ran panel regression based on the principal components obtained, as in Equation (5). Table 5 shows the results. However, seldom do the components show significance except for total CSR and employee protection. For total CSR, F ₁ has a negative coefficient, meaning that company age and list experience negatively influence total CSR. Meanwhile, F ₂ has a positive coefficient, meaning that education could significantly help the development of total CSR. For employee protection, F ₁ still has a negative coefficient, and thus company age and list experience are not beneficial for employee protection. The findings of age correspond to existing studies [ 65], and the findings of list experience and CSR experience further verify the ineffective roles of company experience. Judging from the coefficient of F ₃, we know that state ownership does not benefit employee protection. The ineffective role of state ownership opposes the findings of some existing studies [ 65] but supports those of others [ 50] that studied more recent and longer time periods, and more industries. To summarize, companies' age, list experience, CSR experience and state ownership do not show an important influence on the development of CSR disclosure, though we found some significant results. Actually, most of the significant results are unbeneficial, except for employee education which slightly benefits total CSR disclosure.

For the control variables, the company size and tax paid to the government both have a significant and positive impact on most CSR disclosure activities, while other control variables do not. The tax paid to the government has a particularly large impact, indicating that companies paying more tax might be more socially responsible. These findings could reflect visibility theory mentioned in the Introduction section [ 14, 15, 36].

Table 6 shows the results. We used shareholder, employee, consumer, environment and public to match the descriptions of "interested parties" in both Shenzhen Stock Exchange Social Responsibility Instructions to Listed Companies and Notice of Doing a Better Job for Disclosing 2008 Annual Reports. First, across all regressions, we found that companies following GRI published more CSR reports in total, and in each CSR category, except for consumer and supplier protection. Second, companies that had their reports audited published more CSR reports in general, but this effect comes solely from staff protection, as shown by the third regression. Third, the mandate indicator does not have a significant impact on total CSR projects, nor on each category. To sum up, it seems that firms' external characteristics have a slightly better impact on CSR practices than their internal characteristics, but the CSR regulation still needs further improvement since the audit and mandate indicators do not have a robust impact. This point embraces the viewpoint of a previous study [ 10]. For the control variables, tax still has a significant and positive impact, and size has such an effect on environment protection, again a reflection of the studies mentioned in the Introduction section [ 14, 15, 36].

3.3. Firms' CSR Activities' Impact on Sustainable Economic Development

Table 7 shows the results of the regression analysis. It can be seen that only the CSR adoption rate has an impact on reducing carbon emissions, and this effect is concentrated in the southwest and northwest regions, which is beyond our anticipation since these two regions are the least developed in China. Moreover, other CSR indicators make no difference. CSR projects in the south-central region are even positively related to carbon emissions. The results indicate that the current CSR projects' impact on carbon governance is very questionable. Therefore, there is no clear evidence that companies' CSR activities could reduce carbon emissions, which is insufficient to support that more CSR would induce less carbon emissions, as suggested by a previous study [ 3]. For the control variables, GDP per capita significantly reduces carbon emissions, in accordance with a previous study [ 24], and a higher HDI also helps to reduce carbon emissions. Meanwhile, population has a mixed effect for different regions, which raises a potential research direction to assess how the difference in the economic development stages of regions impacts their carbon emissions. For trade, it is only positively related to carbon emissions in east China, which is reasonable since this region is the region most involved in foreign trade and thus has a greater level of international carbon transfer.

4. Conclusions and Discussion

In this study, we explored the stage that China's CSR practices are at, as well as their impact on carbon governance. Through a comprehensive panel analysis on how CSR disclosure has developed and impacted regional carbon emissions in China, we add both theoretical and practical contributions to the literature which evaluate the effectiveness of firms' CSR activities in regional economic, social and environmental development. The main takeaway of this study is threefold. Firstly, China is in a relatively early stage of CSR development. Chinese firms' CSR disclosure behaviors show that their internal incentive to adopt CSR projects is low, since none of the internal factors researched make a difference in promoting CSR disclosure; CSR has not yet been a strong focus. Secondly, external factors have a slightly better impact on CSR practices since GRI helps to advocate more CSR projects. However, at the same time, the CSR regulation still needs further development since the audit and mandate indicators do not have a robust impact. Thirdly, the current CSR disclosure practices do not have a clear impact on carbon emission reduction, which contradicts some predictions that CSR practices have a positive effect on carbon reduction [ 3]. To summarize, it is urgent for the Chinese regulatory administration and businesses to realize the importance of CSR, develop more CSR practices and design an efficient regulation framework. Meanwhile, the government, society and companies should also pay attention to exploring how to make CSR practices workable for carbon governance. Additionally, since there are huge developmental differences among Chinese regions and provinces, CSR development might need more planning considering local realities besides central standards.

Along with the above conclusions, there is also some information brought about by the controlling variables we used. Mainly, companies with a larger size and that pay more tax are more likely to promote CSR, which embraces visibility theory [ 14, 15, 20, 36]. For carbon governance, our analysis verifies that regions are in different stages of economic development with various characteristics [ 66]. Thus, exploring how to promote CSR practices and regulation with consideration of regional differences could be a fruitful future research topic.

This paper is also limited by the data available to the authors. For example, we can only observe CSR activities through companies' CSR reports, meaning that our sample only contains companies' reports that are publicly traded. Additionally, many CSR reports missed key elements such as financial expenditures and the amounts of emission reductions. Another example is the regional carbon emissions, measured by energy consumption data. We were only able to collect data at the provincial level, while city-level data are missing. In addition, the energy consumption data in 2018 and 2019 have not been published yet. Adding more data will introduce better group classifications, extend the years of samples and provide more CSR project details.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, W.C. and S.L.; methodology, S.L. and W.C.; software, W.C., S.L. and J.L.; validation, S.L.; formal analysis, W.C.; investigation, J.L. and H.S.; resources, S.L.; data curation, J.L. and H.S.; writing-original draft preparation, W.C.; writing-review and editing, S.L.; funding acquisition, S.L. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research was funded by Tsinghua University, grant number 20192001391 and 20202000464. The APC was funded by Tsinghua University.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Informed Consent Statement

Data Availability Statement

The firm data is available from CSMAR database, and the provincial statistical data is available from China Statistical Yearbook published by National Bureau of Statistics of China.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the editor and reviewers for their valuable advice.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

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Publisher's Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Li S, Cheng W, Li J, Shen H. Corporate Social Responsibility Development and Climate Change: Regional Evidence of China. Sustainability. 2021; 13(21):11859. https://doi.org/10.3390/su132111859

Chicago/Turabian Style

Li, Shouhao, Weiquan Cheng, Jingjing Li, and Hao Shen. 2021. "Corporate Social Responsibility Development and Climate Change: Regional Evidence of China" Sustainability 13, no. 21: 11859. https://doi.org/10.3390/su132111859

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Corporate Social Responsibility Development and Climate Change: Regional Evidence of China

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This study analyzed Chinese companies' behavior regarding corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure, and its impact on national and regional climate change measured by carbon emissions. CSR disclosure, supported by existing theories, is considered a powerful tool to curb climate change issues.

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Harvard Reference:

Mbanyele, W. and Muchenje, L.T. (2022). Climate Change Exposure, Risk Management and Corporate Social Responsibility: Cross Country Evidence. Journal of Multinational Financial Management, 66, p.100771. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mulfin.2022.100771.

Article Review:

The paper also considers that risks are climbing and regulators' and investors' concerns about the environment and economic consequences of climate change are on the rise. On the other hand, according to the results of research conducted in the period between 2020-2021, mentioned above, investors are increasingly pulling their money out of high-carbon emitters because they are not as sustainable. A good example of such a situation is Norges Bank Investment Management. This is because it has divested its investments in the companies with a carbon footprints. It is a broad move among the other investors, and with such behavior, a volatility in the market is emphasized. Secondly, the article highlights a significant factor in the climate finance literature, which is the drop in stock prices attributed to bad environmental performance.

While there is considerable literature on how business behavior is interlinked with climate change, the literature on risk factors is just maturing. Evidence does indicate, for instance, a positive correlation of divestment from high-risk firms and poor stock performance of the same firms, insinuating that investors are increasingly conscious about the financial risk associated with poor environmental practices.

Despite the negative implications, the article posits that climate-related risks can inspire positive changes in corporate behavior. Increased investor pressure can encourage corporate leaders to enhance their social and environmental performance. This transformation could allow shifting resources towards sustainability initiatives and increasing corporate social responsibility. Such a focus on environmental accountability could even persuade investors to adopt sustainable investments in light of their long-term benefits.

Keywords:

It shows that in corporate environments, risks related to climate can both act as a deterring factor in the performance of stocks and, simultaneously, act as a driver for improvement in governance and sustainability. One of the strong points about this article is that there are balanced risks and opportunities discussed therein; hence, it is useful to investors and companies that want to respond to these challenges.

However, one potential weakness in the article could be its scant focus on any case study or quantitative data, which could otherwise help strengthen its claim. It is indeed excellent to outline an overview of the change and development, but without in-depth exploration in relation to the effect it brings within diverse sectors. The focus of the paper is good in relation to needing ongoing research; this brings about the critical essence of being adaptive to emerging trends.

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Harvard Reference:

Ozkan, A., Temiz, H. and Yildiz, Y. (2022). Climate Risk, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Firm Performance. British Journal of Management. doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.12665.

Article Review:

This article considers the relationship between religion, national culture, and social responsibility in combating climate risks. Companies are discussing the significant financial losses they may incur due to climate risks, which could amount to up to 1 trillion dollars. This represents a substantial risk for companies.

The article focuses on how companies can tolerate or outcompete these challenges in the climate; this is especially important since CSR, which is Corporate Social Responsibility, at times has negative results on corporate performance. Although the involvement of social responsibility can also strengthen customer loyalty and allow companies to set up themselves as market leaders. These relationships eventually make the firms adapt more to the diverse challenges they are supposed to face as they forge ahead with confidence.

On the other hand, the paper reveals many disadvantages of CSR, particularly concerning perceived hypocrisy or "greenwashing," where companies may be accused of pursuing CSR for publicity rather than genuine concern. This raises questions about the demands for transparency and accountability in all aspects of CSR activities.

Key Points:

The article provides a reflective view on CSR, framing it as a strategic priority rather than merely an ethical obligation. A strong point of this article is its exploration of the interaction between CSR and cultural values, including religiosity, adding depth to the discourse on how national contexts shape corporate responses to climate risks.

However, more empirical support—such as case studies or data—would strengthen the theoretical arguments, making them more applicable to real-world situations. While the paper calls for further research into these cultural and religious influences, it has limited practical utility due to the lack of concrete examples or actionable strategies. Although well-framed within the role of CSR, which tends to drive both innovation and financial performance, the implications still need further consideration with respect to generalization across different global contexts. In any case, the article meaningfully contributes to the discussion of the concept of CSR, though certain applications could be more detailed. fix the additional writing issues

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Facing the storm: Developing corporate adaptation and resilience action plans amid climate uncertainty | npj Climate Action (nature.com)

HARVARD REFERENCE – Okereke, C., Coventry, R., & Dongo, L. (2022). Facing the storm: Developing corporate adaptation and resilience action plans amid climate uncertainty. npj Climate Action, 1(3), 1-10. available at :  https://doi.org/10.1038/s44168-024-00116-2

Review – I chose the article "Facing the Storm: Developing Corporate Adaptation and Resilience Action Plans Amid Climate Uncertainty" because it touches on a topic that feels increasingly relevant—how businesses can not only survive but thrive amid the growing uncertainties posed by climate change. As part of my assignment, this article stood out to me because it addresses corporate adaptation, which is often under-discussed in comparison to other aspects of climate action. The practical focus on business resilience speaks directly to the real-world challenges that companies are facing today.

What drew me in immediately was the way the article highlights the urgency for businesses to move beyond seeing climate change as just another external risk and start building it into their core decision-making processes. Climate change is not a distant issue—it’s happening now, and companies need to prepare. The article outlines clear steps for developing resilience, such as risk assessments, scenario planning, and embedding sustainability into long-term strategies. This emphasis on proactive planning felt very timely, especially given the frequency of extreme weather events and how they impact supply chains, operations, and even corporate reputations.

Another reason I selected this article is because it addresses the role of innovation and technology in strengthening corporate resilience. It brings up ideas like using predictive models and data analytics to forecast risks, which felt particularly compelling. It made me realize that businesses have powerful tools at their disposal, and it's not just about reacting to crises but using these tools to anticipate and adapt to future challenges. This aspect of the article resonated with me, as it ties into the broader theme of resilience not just as survival, but as a means of growing stronger and smarter in the face of adversity.

In summary, this article captured my attention because it connects the dots between climate science and business strategy, offering a roadmap for companies to adapt in a meaningful way. As climate risks intensify, corporate adaptation and resilience are no longer optional—they are essential. That’s why this article felt particularly relevant and useful for my studies.

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A review of the global climate change impacts, adaptation, and sustainable mitigation measures - PMC (nih.gov)

HARVARD REFERENCE – Khan, I., & Ahmad, A. (2021). A review of the global climate change impacts, adaptation, and sustainable mitigation measures. Journal of Environmental Management, 293, 1-10. available at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11356-022-19718-6

Review: I chose the article "A Review of the Global Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation, and Sustainable Mitigation Measures" for my assignment because it provides a comprehensive overview of the multifaceted challenges posed by climate change, while also highlighting the range of strategies available to address these challenges. This article is particularly valuable as it offers a holistic view of climate change by examining its impacts across various sectors, alongside adaptation and mitigation approaches, which are critical for achieving long-term sustainability.

One of the key reasons I selected this article is its global scope. Climate change is a universal issue, but its effects are experienced differently depending on geographical, economic, and social contexts. The article captures this diversity by discussing how climate impacts vary from region to region, providing examples from developed and developing countries alike. This global perspective is essential for understanding the unequal burden climate change places on different populations and how solutions must be tailored accordingly.

Additionally, the article's in-depth discuss of both adaptation and mitigation strategies makes it highly relevant to my study of climate change. Most discussions either focus on adaptation (how we adjust to climate change) or mitigation (how we reduce greenhouse gas emissions). However, this article explores the necessity of combining both approaches to create a balanced, sustainable response. I found this dual focus particularly insightful because it reflects the real-world complexity of managing climate risks.

Another factor that influenced my decision to choose this article is its emphasis on sustainable mitigation measures. The article explores various innovative solutions, such as renewable energy, carbon capture technologies, and nature-based solutions, which are essential for reducing carbon footprints while promoting environmental sustainability. This aligns with my academic interest in sustainable development, as it connects climate action with economic and social development goals.

Summary: This article provides a well-rounded analysis of the global impacts of climate change while offering practical insights into both adaptation and sustainable mitigation measures. Its comprehensive approach makes it an excellent resource for understanding how to navigate the complex challenges posed by climate change.

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Impact of climate change on solicitors | The Law Society

Harvard reference :

Nurlan S. Orazalin  Collins G. Ntim and John K. Malagila (2024) Board Sustainability Committees, Climate Change Initiatives, Carbon Performance, and market Value (35),( 295–320) British Journal of Management Available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1467-8551.12715

Review-

I selected the article "Board Sustainability Committees, Climate Change Initiatives, Carbon Performance, and Market Value" for its emphasis on the increasing significance of corporate governance in tackling the issue of climate change, which is currently a pertinent and crucial topic in the business world. Understanding the importance of board-level oversight and its impact on carbon performance and market value is essential as pressure mounts on companies to embrace sustainable practices. This article offers valuable information on incorporating sustainability into the main strategy of businesses, which is significant for corporate executives, investors, and policymakers.

The article has probably been published in a reputable source, like a sustainability or business journal, and authored by specialists in corporate governance or environmental management. It probably cites empirical studies, corporate case studies, and reports from reputable organizations, boosting its credibility. The emphasis on board committees and corporate actions corresponds with existing research, giving material credibility to those examining the connection between governance and climate action.

The information is trustworthy as it links climate change efforts and carbon efficiency directly to market worth, a crucial measure for any company. This link makes the article useful and relevant, particularly as businesses aim to confirm worldwide sustainability trends while still being profitable.
The article probably relies on trustworthy sources like financial reports and carbon performance metrics to maintain accuracy. It likely mirrors current trends and instances of businesses effectively incorporating sustainability into their practices, lending credibility to its points. Evaluating board supervision is crucial as it demonstrates how internal management can directly influence both environmental and financial results The main goal of the article is to emphasize the significance of sustainability governance, specifically within the board of directors. The goal is to show how efficient board committees can boost climate change efforts, enhance carbon performance, and increase market value. The goal is to motivate companies to act by demonstrating the financial and environmental advantages of incorporating sustainability into corporate governance.

Summary

This article examines how board sustainability committees affect efforts to address climate change, carbon efficiency, and market worth. It underscores the significance of corporate governance in promoting environmental sustainability and showcases the financial advantages of robust sustainability practices. The article offers important insights for companies seeking to balance profits with climate responsibility by connecting board-level supervision to carbon reduction and market performance.

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Speed of environmental change frames relative ecological risk in climate change and climate intervention scenarios | Nature Communications (springer.com)

HARVARD REFERENCE: Irvine, P.J., Kravitz, B., Lawrence, M.G. and Muri, H., 2017. Speed of environmental change frames relative ecological risk in climate change and climate intervention scenarios. Nature Communications, 8(1), p.1-12. AVAILABE AT: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-47656-z

REVIEW – The article explores how the speed of environmental change impacts ecological risks in climate change and climate intervention scenarios. For my assignment, I chose this article because it offers a distinct analysis of the comparative risks associated with climate change and climate intervention, specifically geoengineering, a topic that is becoming increasingly important and intricate.

I decided to read this article because it provides a detailed analysis of climate intervention technologies, including solar radiation management and carbon dioxide removal. These strategies are frequently viewed as possible ways to reduce the impacts of climate change. Nevertheless, this article highlights the importance of the rate at which these interventions are put into place in influencing ecological risks. This viewpoint is crucial as many studies often prioritize the advantages of intervention without adequately examining the possible environmental compromises, especially those resulting from sudden shifts in ecosystems.

Another important factor that attracted me to this article is its focus on the notion of "risk framing." The writers contend that policy decisions are strongly affected by how we present the risks of climate change and climate interventions. This concept struck a chord with me as it emphasizes the significance of incorporating ecological, social, and ethical factors into climate-related decision-making procedures. Essentially, it requires a comprehensive strategy that goes beyond quick technological solutions and instead takes into account the long-term ecological sustainability.

The article also offers important perspectives on the doubt and lack of predictability linked to quick environmental shifts. Contrasting slow and fast-paced changes provides a more in-depth insight into the dynamics in action, highlighting those quicker changes, caused by factors like climate change or intervention, often lead to greater uncertainty in ecological results. This emphasizes the importance of being careful when contemplating extensive climate intervention plans.

Summary - This article offers a fair and thoughtful evaluation of the dangers presented by both climate change and climate intervention. It promotes thoughtful attention to the speed of environmental changes, stressing the importance of a cautious, risk-aware approach to policymaking in this area.

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Harvard Reference:

O’Neill, B.C., Carter, T.R., Ebi, K., Harrison, P.A., Kemp-Benedict, E., Kok, K., Kriegler, E., Preston, B.L., Riahi, K., Sillmann, J., van Ruijven, B.J., van Vuuren, D., Carlisle, D., Conde, C., Fuglestvedt, J., Green, C., Hasegawa, T., Leininger, J., Monteith, S. and Pichs-Madruga, R. (2020). Achievements and needs for the climate change scenario framework. Nature Climate Change, 10(12), pp.1074–1084. doi:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-00952-0.Access (15 october2024

Review

Change in the Climate Forecast The structures: Incorporating environmental, Financial, and Societal Dimensions for Global Sustainable Growth Strategies.

I chose this article due to the delves deeply into the global warming case A system, which is a key tool for studying the complicated relationships between the natural world and society. It was particularly timely since it focused on well-known frameworks that have influenced climate policy and research, such as the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) and Sharing Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs). Long-term planning and climate action have become critical for governments, organisations, and scholars alike; therefore, the study is still relevant today.

The article's credibility is bolstered by its reliance on credible frameworks used by major organisations such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which ensures the correctness of the facts and projections presented

Its investigation into population, GDP, and climate implications across many sectors is based on exact and valid research, making it a reliable resource for knowing how global scenarios effect decision-making.
The goal of this piece is to emphasise both the successes of these frameworks in advancing climate research and the barriers that remain, especially in terms of enhancing regional adaptation, including social issues, and building more effective policy analytic tools. These challenges are critical for academics, governments, and corporations seeking reliable tools for plan in the face of climate unpredictability.

Summary of Key Points:

The article describes how shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) and representative concentration pathways (RCPs) have influenced climate research and policy. These frameworks enable extensive evaluations of climate impacts on sectors such as agriculture, water resources, and public health. Despite these accomplishments, the study cites numerous major problems, including the need for greater integration of societal and climatic data, more accurate regional estimates, and stronger frameworks for analysing adaptation and mitigation options. By resolving these issues, the scenario framework may become even more effective at leading local and global climate action. The paper emphasises the need for constant cooperation and refinement in ensuring that these frameworks stay relevant in an ever-changing environment.

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Login with your University email address. Mewngofnodwch gyda’ch cyfrif e-bost Prifysgol.

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Harvard Reference:

Allen, M.W. and Craig, C.A. (2016). Rethinking corporate social responsibility in the age of climate change: a communication perspective. International Journal of Corporate Social Responsibility, [online] 1(1), pp.1–11. doi:https://doi.org/10.1186/s40991-016-0002-8.

Analysis of the Article on Corporate Social Responsibility and Climate Action
I picked this article because it delves deeply into the evolving link between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and climate change, a critical issue in today's corporate world. Given the global climate catastrophe and international measures such as the 2015 Paris Agreement, the essay is especially timely for firms looking to limit their environmental effect. The paper contends that sustainability is no longer a voluntary measure, but a strategic need for businesses, making it extremely applicable to both academic research and real corporate strategy.
Credibility is established through the use of recognized global sources like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and reference to major developments in international climate policy. By grounding its arguments in these authoritative sources, the article ensures a high level of accuracy and validity, making it a trustworthy resource. However, while the article provides a solid framework for understanding how businesses can address climate risks, it could benefit from more empirical case studies and future research directions to further validate its findings.

The article’s purpose is clear: to demonstrate the importance of redefining CSR as an integral part of business strategy in the face of climate change. It emphasizes that businesses must move toward long-term resilience and embed sustainability into their operations. Additionally, the focus on the role of communication in building stakeholder collaboration offers valuable insights for companies aiming to meet environmental and societal expectations.

Summary of Key Points:
The article describes how Shared Socioeconomic Levels (SSPs) and Representative Concentration Routes (RCPs) have influenced climate research and policy. These frameworks enable extensive evaluations of climate impacts on sectors such as agriculture, water resources, and public health. Despite these accomplishments, the study cites numerous major problems, including the need for greater integration of societal and climatic data, more accurate regional estimates, and stronger frameworks for analysing adaptation and mitigation options. By resolving these issues, the scenario framework may become even more effective at leading local and global climate action. The paper emphasises the need of constant cooperation and refinement in ensuring that these frameworks stay relevant in an ever-changing environment.

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Harvard Reference:

Reaves, D.R., 2019. Successful climate change strategies in corporate farming. Journal of Social Change, 11(1), pp.49–60. https://doi.org/10.5590/JOSC.2019.11.1.05.

Article review

Successful Climate Change Strategies in Corporate Farming

I selected the article Successful Climate Change Strategies in Corporate Farming by DeAnn Renee Reaves because it provides an insightful analysis of how corporate farming can adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change. Given the growing significance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability in the agricultural sector, this article offers valuable perspectives on strategies that address these issues. Its reputation is enhanced by its publication in the peer-reviewed Journal of Social Change and its affiliation with Walden University, which is known for its emphasis on social justice and positive societal impact.

In terms of reliability and relevance, the article focusses on evidence-based solutions, making it a reliable resource for those researching climate adaptation in corporate settings. It focusses on both the environmental and socioeconomic components of climate change, which are essential for understanding the total impact of farming practices on global warming. The article's credibility is bolstered by a thorough assessment of several corporate farming initiatives and their long-term advantages, making it especially valuable for firms and governments looking to embrace sustainable practices.

The objective of this essay is to identify effective ways that corporate farms may use to reduce their environmental impact. It gives a balanced perspective by highlighting both successful adaptations and opportunities for development, notably in the alignment of corporate operations with long-term results. This emphasis on practical, research-based solutions is consistent with larger CSR objectives, making the article an invaluable resource for individuals in the agriculture business.

Summary

The essay highlights the significance of sustainable agricultural methods in corporate agriculture, particularly initiatives to offset the effects of climate change. It examines case studies of effective adaptations such as the use of renewable energy, efficient water management, and soil preservation methods. Reaves also identifies concerns, such as the need for more coordination between governments and enterprises to maintain the sector's long-term survival. The piece of writing is useful for stakeholders that want to integrate corporate farming with sustainability and climate action objectives.

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Harvard Reference:

Sullivan, R. and Doyon, L., 2017. Rethinking corporate social responsibility in the age of climate change: a communication perspective. International Journal of Corporate Social Responsibility, 2(1), pp.1-15. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1186/s40991-017-0026-1 [Accessed 15 October 2024]

Corporate Social Responsibility and Climate Change in the Oil Industry

Selection Rationale

This article investigates how major oil companies address climate change within their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reports, a topic of increasing importance as these firms face intensified scrutiny regarding their environmental practices. The article stands out for its detailed analysis of the language used in corporate disclosures, which is vital for evaluating the authenticity of their sustainability commitments.

Its credibility is reinforced by a structured methodology that incorporates both quantitative and qualitative analyses. By examining a substantial dataset of 294 CSR reports spanning from 2000 to 2013, the article provides an extensive view of how these companies communicate their strategies and beliefs about climate change. This thorough analysis adds to the article's reliability, showcasing a commitment to an accurate representation of industry behaviors.

In terms of significance, the article tackles a critical aspect of corporate conduct in an industry sensitive to environmental issues. It connects with discussions from workshops on bias and misinformation, illustrating how corporate language can obscure the true effects of oil companies on climate change. The findings suggest that while some firms increased their focus on climate change in the mid-2000s, there has been a significant decline in attention since 2010, indicating a shift toward market-driven narratives that overshadow authentic sustainability efforts.

The article aims to highlight how the oil sector manipulates language to shape public perception and avoid accountability for environmental harm. Through a critical examination of corporate rhetoric, the authors call for greater transparency and honesty in discussions surrounding climate issues.

Key Points Summary

The article notes that oil companies often prefer the term "climate change" over "global warming," which serves to lessen the perceived urgency and human causality related to climate issues. It identifies three distinct phases of corporate engagement with climate change, marking significant shifts in discourse following major events like Hurricane Katrina and Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth. Although there was a notable uptick in investments in alternative energy during the mid-2000s, the focus on climate change has diminished since 2010, suggesting a renewed emphasis on energy security.

Moreover, the industry increasingly promotes Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) as a key technological solution for addressing climate change, with references to CCS in CSR reports rising sharply. However, this emphasis on technological solutions often obscures the need for substantial changes in consumption and production practices. Additionally, framing climate change mainly in economic terms casts the oil industry as a victim, distracting from its contributions to the crisis. Overall, the article underscores the gap between corporate rhetoric and genuine sustainability initiatives, urging a more honest conversation about climate change and corporate responsibility.

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Harvard Reference:

Hösli, A. & Weber, R.H., 2022. Climate Change Reporting and Due Diligence: Frontiers of Corporate Climate Responsibility. European Company and Financial Law Review, 18(6), pp.948–979. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1515/ecfr-2021-0035

Review:

I chose this article because it deals directly with the corporate governance and climate change intersection, falling perfectly in line with our group's chosen subtopic. The focus is on corporate responsibility; businesses are among those that play a very important role in mitigating climate risks, and how the legal and financial frameworks are evolving toward this challenge is what shall be of most importance to discuss. The article is also highly relevant on a global scale, especially with respect to how businesses are being regulated in Europe concerning reductions of greenhouse gas emissions as a way of managing climate risks.

The credibility of the article is well established, with academics making up the component authors. Andreas Hösli is a PhD candidate while Rolf H. Weber is a professor emeritus of business law at the University of Zurich. Both have focused on financial regulation and corporate governance. This article is also in a peer-reviewed journal, which adds to the guarantee that it will be a reliable source. Moreover, the research is current to date, reflecting developments up to 2021, hence highly relevant to contemporary debates about climate change and corporate responsibility.

This article becomes particularly important because it gives a huge amount of detailed analysis on how climate change reporting and due diligence are beginning to take center stage regarding corporate governance. This report provides a critical window into some of the key challenges that corporations face in trying to adapt to these new expectations, such as the lack of reporting metrics in standardized form, and even more so, the integration of climate risk into financial disclosure. The discussion on courts for enforcing climate responsibility adds a further critical legal dimension, thus completing this as a comprehensive resource to understand the evolving corporate landscape in the context of climate change.

Summary:

The article by Hösli and Weber, "Climate Change Reporting and Due Diligence: Frontiers of Corporate Climate Responsibility," generally presents an evolving trend in the role of corporate governance in climate change. The focus of the article, however, is how corporations are increasingly expected to integrate all considerations about climate change into business practices and operations, especially reporting and due diligence. The authors, therefore, underscore that transparency and accountability through frameworks such as the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures have served to provide the necessary guidance toward corporate disclosure of climate risk. They also discuss the transition underway from voluntary measures of climate responsibility to binding law, especially in Europe, where regulatory frameworks are more advanced. The article also underlines an increasing tendency of courts to hold companies responsible for contributing to climate change and insists corporations will go on to suffer financial and legal consequences for failing to act responsibly.

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Climate Change Reporting and Due Diligence: Frontiers of Corporate Climate Responsibility

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Climate change affects businesses significantly. Corporations are increasingly expected to consider the impacts of climate change on their business and, conversely, the impacts of their business on the global climate, which calls for adequate measures to reduce climate-related risks. Despite the widely accepted need for swift and quite drastic reductions of greenhouse gas emissions to limit global temperature rise in line with the Paris Agreement, specific and binding legal obligations for corporations mandating such reductions are scarce. Potentially filling this regulatory gap, international best practices for private sector enterprises to address climate change related issues are quickly emerging, and regulators are beginning to transpose them into binding legal frameworks. In addition, courts are increasingly called upon to review climate-related business decisions and strategies. Climate change reporting and, more recently, climate change due diligence are core aspects in this complex debate. This article explores and contextualizes these developments from a transnational perspective, with a main focus on Europe.

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Harvard Reference:

Carvalho, A. & Pereira, E., 2011. Communicating Climate Change in Portugal: A Critical Analysis of Journalism and Beyond. Environmental Communication, 5(1), pp.89-106. Available at: https://repositorio.iscte-iul.pt/bitstream/10071/8641/1/publisher_version_2011_1_89_.pdf.

Review:

I chose this article because it gives a more critical look into media communication, which is highly related to our group's subtopic about climate change. Media plays an important, critical role in shaping public understanding of the issue because it shows them what the public perceives, policy action or individual behavior. The present article therefore analyzes media content in Portugal to bring into the limelight how framing on climate change occurs, to which our discussion of effective communication strategies in the context of global environmental challenges is directly coupled.

This is quite an authoritative article because it is written by two leading scholars in the field of environmental communication, namely Ana Carvalho and Eduardo Pereira. The analysis has also been published in a peer-reviewed journal, Environmental Communication; hence, one can be confident that the work follows most of the strictures associated with academic rigor and therefore is a reliable analysis. Lastly, the research is backed by some empirical data by means of the content analysis of news outlets done by the authors, reinforcing the accuracy and validity of their findings.

It comes at a very timely moment, given the present debates on how climate change is best communicated to the public. An analysis such as this can show the lacuna of media practice-what creates misinformation or a lack of deeper engagement: sensationalism and preoccupation with short-term crises. This goes in line with our class discussions of how bias and misinformation impact public understanding of complex issues like climate change.

This paper thus calls for a more responsible and effective media practice that gives leeway to accurate and balanced reporting in regard to the environment. The critique of current media strategies provides valuable lessons that can be derived in the interest of enhancing climate change communication. It will be a useful text for exploring how media can either promote or hinder public awareness and action about climate issues.

Summary:

Carvalho and Pereira's article "Communicating Climate Change in Portugal: A Critical Analysis of Journalism and Beyond" discusses how the Portuguese media report about climate change and what effect this has on public engagement. The authors engage in a more detailed content analysis of news articles, observing how the media framing of climate change occurs. They assert that an over-emphasis on sensationalist and crisis-framing narratives hinders sustained public engagement on the issue. Prioritizing angles which are short-term and dramatic in nature, it does little to support the fostering of more informed debate about long-term solutions to combat climate change. It also cited as further complication the political and economic pressures impinging on media reporting of environmental issues. The authors call for more responsible and nuanced journalism to better enhance public understanding regarding climate challenges. This, in general, calls for a change in media practices that could better support more effective communication strategies related to climate change in the setting of Portugal.

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Harvard Reference:

Guo, Y. and Yang, D.C., 2017. Does the 2010 SEC Climate Change Disclosure Guidance Change Firms’ Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting? International Journal of Business, 22(1), pp.25-42. https://ijb.cyut.edu.tw/var/file/10/1010/img/863/V221-2.pdf

Review:

I chose this article because it directly addresses research on the relationship between climate change and corporate social responsibility, important to develop my subtopic of climate change. This article discusses how the 2010 SEC guidance on climate change disclosure affects CSR reporting in US firms. It provides a long empirical analysis from 2007 to 2012. Given that the assignment related to bias, misinformation, and credibility, this being an academic and peer-review article from a reputable journal ensures that it is of high credibility and reliability.

This article relates directly to my topic because it looks at the practical implications of regulatory policies on corporate behavior in climate change, an issue very topical for stakeholders and policymakers. It also utilized a sound methodological approach through multivariate analysis and comparison between the climate change disclosure firms and the no disclosure firms. This, in effect, makes the conclusions reliable. The use of extensive datasets such as COMPUSTAT and KLD STATS enhances the validity of this study, as the authors draw from both financial and non-financial data to examine the effects of the guidance.

The purpose of the article aligns well with my focus on how regulatory frameworks influence CSR. The authors provide valuable insights for policymakers, corporate decision-makers, and stakeholders interested in the effectiveness of climate change reporting requirements. Filling gaps in the literature that often used data over a short time period and lacked analytic depth found in the current study.

Unique is the lack of bias and misinformation in the article. Conflicting views, like the criticisms of the guidance from the SEC due to its potential to actually deter CSR reporting because companies may risk legal liability, are indicated by the authors. The claims are then tested methodically, and the results show evidence that the guidance issued by the SEC did not have a negative impact on overall CSR reporting. Their balancing of evidence both for and against gives further reliability to the article. There is a potential for bias, however, from some inbuilt limitations in the dataset used and the assumption of all firms behaving rationally due to regulatory pressure. These the authors assuage appropriately with statistical methods, sensitivity tests including the use of a matched control sample.

Summary:

The article investigates the impact of the SEC’s 2010 Climate Change Disclosure Guidance on U.S. firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting. It examines the relationship between climate change disclosures and CSR concerns, strengths, and overall transparency. Using data from 2007 to 2012, the authors found that firms disclosing climate change information also tend to report more on CSR. Whereas there were fears that the new guidance by the SEC would dampen or discourage CSR reporting because of the specter of liability, this study concludes that no discouragement was realized. It seemed to encourage more transparency in the firms' environmental sensitivity. This study compares firms before and after the implementation of this guidance and brings into light the positive relationship between climate change and CSR disclosures as encouragement of stakeholder expectations in driving corporate behavior​.

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Harvard Reference:

Soares, A.M., 2023. Climate change framing in the communication of CSR policies: The Secil Group example. Journal of Communication Management, 27(2), pp.226-240. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCOM-04-2022-0048.

Review:

I chose this article because, through the case study of a specific industry relevant to my climate change assignment, it investigates the ways in which climate change is addressed by the policies of corporate social responsibility. The case study on the Secil Group, being a cement company, is highly relevant, as the construction sector is among those with the highest environmental impacts, and its way of adopting and handling CSR is important to understand for broader efforts toward sustainability.

Publication in a peer-reviewed journal and the stringently applied theories of communication, such as framing theory, further enhance the credibility of the article. The design of the study-document analysis and qualitative content analysis-naturally reinforces the reliability of its findings. Further, it draws on international climate frameworks like the Paris Agreement and sectoral guidelines from the Global Cement and Concrete Association GCCA, adding to its relevance.

The article is useful in comprehending how economic performance and environmental responsibility are balanced by firms. This emphasis is on the difficulties that Secil faces to frame climate change as both a regulatory and ethical issue. Such framing will be in line with larger climate action policy and will provide an example of how real-world CSR strategies are communicated, linked directly to my assignment's focus on corporate responses to climate change.

It does not take a critical approach toward Secil's actions as far as bias and misinformation are concerned. On one hand, it shows CSR communication to be strategic in nature; on the other hand, such instances are identified where the sustainability operation of Secil can be perceived as compliance driven rather than proactive. One limitation could be that this study relies on company reports, which are essentially biased to project a particular image for the organization. However, the author diminishes the bias of these reports by comparing them with international regulatory frameworks in order to present a balanced point of view. As a matter of fact, framing theory has also allowed the author to study how information has been framed and communicated; thus, allowing an understanding of possible biases in the process of communicating CSR to stakeholders.

Summary:

The article examines how the Secil Group, a cement company, frames its corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies in addressing climate change. By applying framing theory, the study explores Secil’s sustainability report and compares it with international and sectoral climate change measures like the Paris Agreement. The results show that Secil uses different narratives about climate change in ethical, regulatory, and financial respects. That is indicative of the challenges to balance environmental responsibility with proper economic performance. Though the company connects its communication of CSR issues with international goals on sustainability, the authors note that the efforts made by Secil may look more like ones of compliance rather than proactive. The article also mentions that strategic communication plays a very important role in shaping public perceptions and building the company's reputation, stating that CSR policies are related intrinsically to corporate legitimacy and stakeholder engagement​.

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Climate change framing in the communication of CSR policies: the Secil Group example | Emerald Insight

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Climate change framing in the communication of CSR policies: the Secil Group example - Author: Andréia Melchiades Soares

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www.spglobal.com. (2023). Quantifying the financial costs of climate change physical risks for companies. [online] Available at: https://www.spglobal.com/esg/insights/featured/special-editorial/quantifying-the-financial-costs-of-climate-change-physical-risks

Climate change presents a variety of challenges, including investor pressure and customer satisfaction however, the largest pressing issue is the financial impacts. Published by S&P Global, this article meticulously analyses the financial implications businesses may face and further details how companies that are exposed to the effects of climate change are facing a significant increase in costs, rising to an average of 3.3% to 28% per year of real assets by 2050.The article emphasises how important scenario-based analysis and adaptation measures are in mitigating increasing financial risks, exploring how particular sectors of businesses, such as communication servers and data centres, are at higher risk of facing these challenges and require immediate attention.

As the article is published by S&P Global, the claims made are greatly strengthened, as the company is renowned for its trustworthy analyses and is widely recognised as a reputable source of information. The research methodologies used in the article reinforce its credibility, as they are meticulous and researched thoroughly. The topic is critically important for businesses as the financial impacts are already impacting businesses globally and underscores the importance of pre-emptive measures in a comprehensive manner. Further, this topic is hugely important for businesses to understand, as the financial impacts are already impacting businesses worldwide. The report provides a comprehensive account of proactive strategies that are key to mitigating the impacts. The conclusions drawn in this analysis are concrete due to its solid support from real-life data and further include current-day data and trends, making it relevant and applicable. The article provides companies with actionable insights to avoid these risks while providing infographics to visualise the extent of these issues, displaying a clear and well-documented analysis accessible for all levels of businesses. Further, the use of actionable insights equips companies with a solid baseline for the adoption of sustainable practices. However, the report would benefit from including real-life examples and how effects were prevented or how they failed to do so, emphasizing the importance of preventative actions.

In summary, the report stresses the importance of developing pre-emptive measures and equips companies with well-supported guidance in the adoption of financial plans. By offering a structured framework and calculable data, the visualisation of extreme threats empowers businesses to understand the importance of an informed and strategic plan in reaching sustainability.

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Author
Jennifer Laidlaw | S&P Global Sustainable1, Thought Leadership Senior Writer
Rick Lord | S&P Global Sustainable1, Head of Innovation Methodology
Matthew MacFarland | S&P Global Sustainable1, Thought Leadership Editor
Kuntal Singh | S&P Global Sustainable1, ESG Innovation and Analytics Manager

Extreme weather events have defined 2023, from Cyclone Freddy sweeping across several African countries, to wildfires in Canada that blanketed eastern North America in smoke, to extreme heat around the world that made July the hottest month on record by a wide margin.

Scientists are increasingly making the connection between extreme weather events and climate change. As the damage from extreme weather events becomes more apparent, we seek in this research to measure the financial costs of climate hazards on corporate assets in different sectors and geographies.

Applying the S&P Global Sustainable1 Physical Risk Exposure Scores and Financial Impact dataset to companies in the S&P Global 1200, we find that by the 2050s the costs of the physical hazards of climate change will equal an average of 3.3% per annum - and up to 28% per annum - of the value of real assets held by companies in the index, absent adaptation. That average per-annum figure rises to 6.0% by the 2090s. These costs are annual and cumulative over time, representing a material financial risk for many companies.

The relative size of the financial impact in the 2050s and 2090s under this scenario is similar for the S&P 500.

The S&P Global Sustainable1 Physical Risk Exposure Scores and Financial Impact dataset defines for each company the financial impact due to changing hazard exposure, absent any adaptation and resilience measures. Financial impact at the company level reflects the weighted average financial impact for all assets linked to the company, weighted by the estimated value of the assets.

To assess the financial impact at the asset level, we use S&P Global Sustainable1 climate physical risk data, which assigns an exposure score for physical climate hazards to each of the more than 2 million corporate assets in the dataset. We assess seven physical climate hazards: extreme heat, water stress, coastal flood, fluvial flood, tropical cyclone, drought and wildfire. The hazard exposure score for an asset is combined with the asset type-specific sensitivity profile to quantify the future financial costs associated with each hazard. These costs can include a range of costs stemming from increased operational expenses to lost revenues due to business interruption through to physical damage and costs to repair assets. These costs are expressed as a percentage of the value of each asset type as an indicator of the financial impact at the asset level.

The assets considered are real assets or physical assets. The asset values are constant and indicate the relative value of different asset types, such as an office compared with an electric power plant. The costs associated with the hazards can, but do not always, reduce the value of a real asset.

These projections are based on the climate scenario known as SSP3-7.0, which is characterized by limited mitigation where total greenhouse gas emissions double by 2100 and global average temperatures rise by 2.8 degrees C to 4.6 degrees C by 2100. The S&P Global 1200 is an index that covers the largest companies across North America, Europe, Asia, Australia and Latin America, capturing approximately 70% of global market capitalization.

S&P Global Sustainable1 does not currently have complete data on all asset holdings of all companies in the S&P Global 1200, and these results could change as asset data coverage expands over time.

Some climate hazards will generate more significant financial costs for S&P Global 1200 assets than others, according to our data. Extreme heat is projected to generate the highest cost for companies in the 2050s, in part because nearly all assets will face at least some exposure to extreme heat, whereas exposure to other hazards is more variable. Water stress and fluvial flooding are the second- and third-most significant sources of financial impact for the S&P Global 1200. Water stress refers to the combination of reduced freshwater availability from sources such as rainfall and increased water demand from the general population, industrial use and agriculture.

For example, extreme heat could affect businesses across sectors through lower labor productivity: If it is too hot, employee health and safety and company operations can suffer. Energy grids can come under pressure as the general population cranks up air conditioning use. Transportation links can be damaged, leading to delays in supply chains.

If we look further ahead to the 2090s, the financial impact of extreme heat intensifies, and hazards that are less severe in the 2050s become more significant without efforts to adapt.

How climate affects sectors differently

The potential financial impact of climate hazards could influence where a company decides to develop its operations or where investors put their money. A severe drought may decimate a vineyard while the productivity of a nearby office building might not be affected much at all. Such shifts, in turn, would change the risk profile of businesses and have a knock-on effect on banks, insurers and investors.

Our analysis shows that some sectors are more sensitive than others in terms of the potential financial impact of climate hazards. The location of an asset also influences how high the financial impact could be.

For example, the communication services sector in the S&P Global 1200 would face significant financial impact: 5.4% per annum of real asset values by the 2050s. This sector includes telecommunications firms, data providers and media companies. Extreme heat would generate the largest impact absent adaptation, followed by water stress, drought and fluvial flooding. In communication services, 97% of real assets with financial impact of 10% or more by the 2050s are datacenters, and datacenter assets have the highest average financial impact for this sector at 8.3%. Datacenters are sensitive to extreme temperatures and restricted access to water due to their dependency on heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) and cooling.

Extreme heat represents the largest share of financial impact for most sectors in the 2050s. While that holds true further out toward the 2090s, other hazards become much more significant. The financial impacts from coastal flooding and drought become more severe across many sectors.

Datacenters

Zooming in on one type of corporate asset - datacenters - provides insight into how different climate hazards contribute to financial impact absent adaptation and resilience measures. Datacenters are also worth examining because they are fundamental infrastructure to the digital economy, and they are likely to become more important as technology evolves throughout the rest of the century.

The Physical Risk Exposure Scores and Financial Impact dataset covers more than 2,000 datacenters owned by S&P Global 1200 companies. These assets are particularly sensitive to extreme heat, which will have the highest financial impact by the 2050s, followed by drought and water stress.

Extreme heat can lead to accelerated degradation of HVAC systems and thus increase capital expenditure. For example, take two hypothetical datacenters located on the same block in a city that is exposed to extreme heat. One of them is a small site operated by a local internet service provider while the other is a state-of-the-art facility operated by a multinational social network company. Periods of extreme heat would increase cooling costs and speed up the deterioration of HVAC systems for both datacenters. These costs can be expressed in relative terms for both assets (i.e., the percentage of typical asset value), but the absolute cost would be much higher for a state-of-the-art facility. The value of each facility is not known, which is why this analysis focuses on the relative impact.

While the absolute costs are likely to vary by location or the size of the asset, the vast majority of datacenters owned by S&P Global 1200 companies will face at least some financial impact by the 2050s. In that decade, about one-quarter of these datacenters could face financial impact equal to 10% or more of the asset's value. That share skyrockets to nearly 89% of datacenters by the 2090s.

The regional differences of climate hazards

Location will also drive companies' exposure to physical risk hazards and what financial impact their assets may face. Extreme heat is the greatest source of financial impact for datacenters owned by S&P Global 1200 companies in Europe and Central Asia, North America, and Latin America and the Caribbean by the 2050s. However, in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East and North Africa, water stress will have the greatest financial impact.

These two hazards can also reinforce one another, worsening the outcome in areas dealing with both. In sub-Saharan Africa, 80% of countries are likely to have more than 45 days of heat waves per year by 2050, compared with less than 15% currently, according to a report on potential economic losses from physical climate risks by S&P Global Ratings.

The slow pace of adaptation

A growing number of large corporates around the world have pledged to cut their greenhouse gas emissions as close to zero as possible and offset the remainder, usually by the distant deadline of 2050. But they remain the exception rather than the rule. Meanwhile, corporate action to adapt to the physical risks of climate change has been slow. An analysis of S&P Global ESG Raw Data, which is built on the S&P Global Corporate Sustainability Assessment, shows that just one in five companies across sectors has a plan to adapt to the physical impacts of climate change. Just over 46% of assessed companies globally conduct physical risk assessments, which could indicate how climate-related risks are embedded throughout a company. A certain amount of change is locked in due to the lag in the climate system owing to historic GHG emissions - many of the impacts of climate change will therefore materialize irrespective of the policy choices made today and absent adaptation.

In the run-up to COP28, there is urgent need for action on climate and the creation of solutions to address worsening physical risks. Adaptation and resilience will be key to preventing the worst damage from physical climate risks over the coming years. Understanding these hazards, weighing the severity of climate events in a geographical area, and then assessing the potential financial impact on assets could help companies make more effective decisions on adapting their operations to climate change.

Methodology of the Physical Risk Exposure Scores and Financial Impact dataset

Our data projects future financial costs of climate change on more than 20,000 companies and more than 2 million individual assets. The data includes the projected impacts of extreme heat, wildfire, water stress, drought, coastal flood, fluvial flood and tropical cyclone. The data is based on four climate scenarios, which consider future GHG emissions and to what extent governments have enacted policies to curb the effects of climate change. The dataset measures a physical asset's exposure to climate hazards through exposure scores. It also projects the future financial costs of evolving climate hazards and expresses these costs as a percentage of typical asset value to reflect the potential financial impact of those hazards absent adaptation and resilience measures. These costs can include a range of costs stemming from increased operational expenses, to lost revenues due to business interruption, through to physical damage and costs to repair assets.
Shared Socioeconomic Pathways Defined
The IPCC established the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) as a set of scenarios for projected greenhouse gas emissions and temperature changes. The SSPs incorporate broad changes in socioeconomic systems, including global population growth, economic growth, resource availability and technological developments:

SSP1-2.6 is a low-emissions scenario in which the world shifts gradually, but consistently, toward a more sustainable path. This SSP aligns with the Paris Agreement on climate change's target to limit the average increase in global temperature to well below 2 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. The global temperature is projected to increase by 1.7 degrees (a likely range of 1.3-2.2 degrees) by 2050 or by 1.8 degrees (1.3-2.4 degrees) by the end of the century.

SSP2-4.5 is a moderate-emissions scenario, consistent with a future with relatively ambitious emissions reductions but where social, economic and technological trends do not deviate significantly from historical patterns. This scenario falls short of the Paris Agreement on climate change's aim of limiting the global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees, with a projected increase of 2.0 degrees (1.6-2.5 degrees) by 2050 or 2.7 degrees (2.1-3.5 degrees) by the end of the century.

SSP3-7.0 is a moderate- to high-emissions scenario, in which countries increasingly focus on domestic or regional issues, with slower economic development and lower population growth. A low international priority for addressing environmental concerns leads to rapid environmental degradation in some regions. This SSP projects a global temperature increase of 2.1 degrees (1.7-2.6 degrees) by 2050 or 3.6 degrees (2.8-4.6 degrees) by the end of the century.

SSP5-8.5 is a high-emissions scenario, in which the world places increasing faith in competitive markets, innovation and participatory societies to produce rapid technological progress and development of human capital as a path to sustainable development. This SSP projects the global temperature increase at 2.4 degrees (1.9-3.0 degrees) by 2050 or 4.4 degrees (3.3-5.7 degrees) by the end of the century.

Many companies do not disclose the value of their corporate assets. To help address such data gaps, S&P Global Sustainable1 has calculated typical asset replacement values for more than 250 unique asset types and ownership structures. These typical asset values can be used to produce a relative measure of financial impact - expressing the costs of climate physical hazard exposure as a percentage of the typical asset value and providing an indicator of the financial impact of those costs to an asset, or in aggregate for a company owning many assets.

The exposure scores and financial impact metrics are measured by looking at a specific hazard. For flooding, for example, we calculate the annual frequency of exceeding a historical 100-year flood level relative to a baseline period between 1950 and 1999 for four scenarios and all decades between the 2020s and 2090s. We then look at the business interruption, cleanup and repair and calculate the projected cost to an asset. The exposure scores demonstrate the presence of climate hazards at asset locations or in aggregate for a company, while the financial impact metrics quantify the financial costs of that exposure as a percentage of the future value of a specific asset type or group of assets, enabling users to focus on those hazards that will potentially have the greatest financial impact absent adaptation and resilience measures.
This research was prepared by and reflects the views of S&P Global Sustainable1, which is separate and independent from other businesses/divisions of S&P Global, including S&P Global Ratings.
Assess your physical climate risk exposure

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Quantifying the financial costs of climate change physical risks for companies

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Without adaptation measures, the physical impacts of climate change represent a significant financial risk for many companies.

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Horton, H. (2024). Britain’s climate action plan unlawful, high court rules. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/03/britain-climate-action-plan-unlawful-high-court

As the threat of climate change rises, implementing achievable policies proves crucial in order to reach reduced emission targets. The source critically examines the recent ruling of the UK government's climate action plan, which was deemed unlawful by the High Court due to flawed assumptions and incomplete information. Environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth challenged the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, stating that the proposed policies were unsupported and inadequate. The High Court acknowledged the claims, further stating that there is a lack of substantial evidence in the proposed policies, breaching the 2008 Climate Change Act. In response, the government claimed that the case did not focus on the significance of preventative actions but on legal concerns and now the policies are required to be revised within 12 months in order to comply with legally binding targets.

The article presents a comprehensive and credible overview of the recent ruling, detailing sources such as Friends of the Earth and referencing direct quotes from the High Court to showcase a diverse and balanced perspective. As the judgement was placed in 2024, this article's publication is well-timed and further aids in addressing the growing need for effective climate change measures. The article uses a holistic approach in its review, presenting a concrete representation of the events that took place; however, the article would do well to delve deeper into the failure of the policies and what improvements could be made, a key strategy in ensuring its success. Further, the article does well to display a diverse use of perspectives while examining the High Court's decision however, in order to strengthen its credibility and its value as a reliable source, the article would benefit from exploring a larger range of environmental perspectives in its analysis to present a balanced and applicable review.

In conclusion, the article is a valuable source of information to businesses and stakeholders, looking for a clear and comprehensive explanation of the recent high court ruling. It supports its claim thoroughly through using extensive research and proves its value in the discussion of climate change prevention as well as its usefulness.

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Britain's latest climate action plan is unlawful, a high court judge has ruled, after a legal challenge by three environmental campaign groups over emissions targets.

The environmental charities Friends of the Earth and ClientEarth, and the Good Law Project took joint legal action against the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) over its decision to approve the carbon budget delivery plan (CBDP) in March 2023.

The plan outlines how the country will achieve targets set out in the sixth carbon budget, which runs until 2037, as part of wider efforts to reach net zero by 2050.

Those emissions targets were set after a 2022 ruling that Britain had breached legislation designed to help reach the 2015 Paris agreement goal of containing temperatures within 1.5C (2.7F) of pre-industrial levels.

The three groups argued at a hearing in February that the then secretary of state, Grant Shapps, acted unlawfully by approving the plan as he lacked information on whether individual policies could be delivered in full.

Friends of the Earth's lawyer, David Wolfe, said Britain's Climate Change Committee warned last year there were credible policies in place for less than 20% of the reductions required to meet the carbon budget for the period 2033-37. But, the group said, Shapps "proceeded on the assumption that the reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases from all of the proposals and policies ... would all be delivered in full".

In a ruling on Friday, Mr Justice Sheldon upheld four of the five grounds of the legal challenge, stating that Shapps's decision was "simply not justified by the evidence".

He said: "If, as I have found, the secretary of state did make his decision on the assumption that each of the proposals and policies would be delivered in full, then the secretary of state's decision was taken on the basis of a mistaken understanding of the true factual position."

A DESNZ spokesperson said: "The UK can be hugely proud of its record on climate change. Not only are we the first major economy to reach halfway to net zero, we have also set out more detail than any other G20 country on how we will reach our ambitious carbon budgets. The claims in this case were largely about process and the judgment contains no criticism of the detailed plans we have in place. We do not believe a court case about process represents the best way of driving progress towards our shared goal of reaching net zero."
More details soon ...

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Britain's climate action plan unlawful, high court rules

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Environmental campaign groups took joint action against decision to approve carbon budget delivery plan

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Machado, M., Park, S. and Rivera, J. (2023). Business Response Strategies to Climate Change: An Integrative and Research Frontiers Outlook. Organization & Environment, 37(2). doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/10860266231202819

As climate change continues to impact firm operations globally, the need for corporate sustainability is at an all-time high. This article critically assesses the effectiveness of current business strategies, providing a comprehensive insight into challenges that may arise and preventative actions that should be taken. The article highlights the importance of leadership in ensuring long-term sustainability alongside the usefulness of proactive planning in adopting these strategies. It further acknowledges the challenges businesses may face in the adoption of these practices and suggests theoretical strategies to consider when planning for long-term sustainability.

Published by ‘Organisation & Environment’, a recognised journal in the field, the claims made within the article are significantly upholstered. The research is meticulous and reliable presented through a balance of factual data and theoretical opinion, strengthened by the author’s qualifications and expertise in strategy and management. Relevant to the current climate crisis, the report aims to inform businesses and stakeholders of the true importance of pro-active strategies to mitigate the threats of climate change and provides theoretical examples to help aid their efforts. The article uses an extensive resource of pre-existing literature to strengthen its claims and further reflects on the current financial trends of climate change, presenting a conclusive analysis of current response strategies. The authors do well to acknowledge the impacts from different perspectives, providing a broader review of the strategies, while stressing the importance of adopting concrete strategies and the role strong leadership has in ensuring longevity. However, the article heavily relies on theoretical strategies, failing to discuss case-specific studies where the threats were dealt with successfully, damaging its representation as valid source. As a result, the article is unbalanced, limiting its applicability in global scenarios.

In conclusion, the article would benefit from including a broader range of successful strategies and balancing the theoretical approach it takes, strengthening the credibility and validity of the arguments and its use in real-life scenarios. However, the article offers valuable insights into strategies and highlights the importance of proactive measures and strategic preparation in combating the challenges of climate change.

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Amran, A., Ooi, S.K., Wong, C.Y. and Hashim, F. (2015). Business Strategy for Climate Change: An ASEAN Perspective. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, [online] 23(4), pp.213–227. doi:https://doi.org/10.1002/csr.1371.

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Climate change has devastating effects on a multitude of industries globally; however, it’s important to recognise the vulnerability of some regions against others. This article, ‘Business Strategy for Climate Change: An ASEAN Perspective’, explores the current strategies this vulnerable union has in place and provides a constructive overview of the challenges, key focus points and improvements that can be made. The authors highlight the importance of resilience in the face of climate change and the role of corporate sustainability in the mitigation of climate-related threats. They suggest areas of key focus, such as the reduction of carbon emissions and the importance of fuel efficiency, aiming to promote the longevity of businesses. Further, the article delves into how countries can achieve their green targets, suggesting that globally credible standards and collaboration between countries is critical to successful strategies and that many businesses have not considered climate change in their strategies, stating that there is a critical need for proactive measures across the countries.

As the article is published in the international journal ‘Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management’, the arguments presented are supported by a thoroughly respected source of information in the field and upholds its credibility as a useful source. Further, the author’s expertise supports the credibility of the claims, as they have extensive experience in both business strategy and environmental management, increasing the reliability of the article.

As ASEAN countries are one of the most vulnerable regions to severe weather events, this article is critical to businesses looking to take proactive action in the mitigation of these threats. To support its claims and theories, the article uses independent data collection and analysis to demonstrate its reliability as an informational source. The data presented takes a quantitative and qualitative approach, ensuring that the findings are accurate and thoroughly researched.

To summarise, the article does well in displaying and analysing the current strategies of ASEAN countries and highlights where these plans fall short, as seen through its suggestion of crucial focus areas and various alternative strategies. Further, the evidence is well-rounded and supported thoroughly through primary and secondary research, alongside a display of infographics to visually present its findings. However, the article fails to recognise the role that policymakers have in ensuring businesses are achieving sustainable standards, damaging its practicality. Further, there is a lack of focus on real-case scenarios, limiting the applicability of the theories presented.

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Reference:

Amran, A. Keat Ooi, S. Yew Wong, C. and Hashim, F. (2016) ‘Business Strategy for Climate Change: An ASEAN Perspective’, Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 23, pp. 213-227. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1002/csr.1371 (Accessed 21 October 2024)

Review:

I chose this article because it investigates strategies businesses have utilized to counteract the impact of climate change. It shows that businesses have started to consider the risks of climate change to business such as regulatory, reputational, physical and litigation. This article showcases the strategies businesses are taking to mitigate the risks listed previously. Climate change is no longer being viewed as a strategically important issue and is being addressed as such. It also discusses how governments and businesses have implemented policies and measures. It also mentions that many businesses more than 30% in fact admitted to never including climate change in their business strategies possibly due to regulatory risks.

This article is credible as it is published in a peer-reviewed journal of corporate social responsibility and environmental management. The fact it is peer-reviewed increases the credibility of the article substantially as it allows feedback and transparency between authors and ensures that all data used is relevant to the topic and accurate. The open access of this journal to different institutions increases the authenticity of this article as it allows constant communication.

This article is accurate due to it being published recently in 2015 when businesses first investigated the risks and strategies of climate change in a business environment. The purpose of this article is to show how businesses have been impacted by the increased frequency and intensity of weather conditions focusing on the ASEAN countries in particular whose natural environment is fragile compared to other groups of countries. It shows the factors that influence ASEAN business strategies.

Summary:

In summary this article presents the factors that influence a business’s decision making and strategy and provides evidence from ASEAN countries based on combined views of institutional and resource-based theories. The home country and host country effect are used to showcase the relationships between these effects and a business’s climate change business strategy. This article’s results were that 75% percent of the businesses in ASEAN countries were aware of the issues climate change presented and 50% of the companies had plans in place to address the issues climate change presented. The possible strategies discussed and implemented are adaptation and mitigation.

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Reference:

Wright, C. and Nyberg, D. (2017) ‘AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH: HOW ORGANIZATIONS TRANSLATE CLIMATE CHANGE INTO BUSINESS AS USUAL’, Academy of Management Journal, 60(5), pp. 1633-1661. Available at: AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH: HOW ORGANIZATIONS TRANSLATE CLIMATE CHANGE INTO BUSI...: EBSCOhost   (Accessed 21 October 2024).

Article Review:

I chose this article as it covers how businesses face the challenges of climate change it is relevant to the chosen topic as it goes in detail about the practise’s businesses have implemented to face climate change and the different stages of organisational climate change translation along with multiple data structures and charts with supporting evidence. It discusses a case study conducted on five companies and explores their strategies and practices more in depth compared to the theory presented alongside the study. From the case study they developed a model of the corporate translation towards climate change. Most companies launched a focus on climate change and have invested in a renewable clean energy source.

This article is accurate and valid as it was published in 2017 and has provided all the data that it used for the various graphs and figures provided in the case studies and the theories of how to combat climate change. It has provided a reference list to all other outlets of information used to write this article. The sources of information used are all credible and peer reviewed.

This article is credible it is a peer reviewed journal by the name of Academy of management and has many articles discussing management forms and solutions to various issues. It being a peer reviewed article greatly boosts the credibility of the article as it provides an open communication between authors to allow criticism and remedy errors and ensures that all information is correct. The open source provided by this journal to other organizations increases the authenticity due to academics consistently viewing the content.

In summary this article’s purpose it to show how different companies have tried to adapt to the difficulties climate change presents and the different practices and policies. It also goes over some theory for framing climate change as a business concern and to develop a model for corporate translation towards climate change. It discusses the different stages of climate change translation for organizations such as framing, localizing and normalizing stage. It shows how businesses shift from grand challenge to business as usual and gives a diagram on how the theory is to be used in an organization.

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Search by name, city, or institutional email

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Reference:

Lee, S-Y. and Klassen, R.D. (2015) ‘Firms response to climate change: the interplay of business uncertainty and organizational capabilities’, Business Strategy and the Environment, 25(8), pp. 577-592. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.1890 (Accessed 21 October 2024).

Article Review:

I chose this article as it is on the topic of climate change. This article aims to answer many questions about climate change due to the increase in concern from businesses making it one of the most important issues. It shows that many firms have begone to consider global warming and climate change an issue and have begun discussing ways to mitigate it in their strategic management. Another topic discussed is business uncertainty they mention of the importance of it in an industry and it can be translated into a managerial perceptions or objective metrics. The article conducted a survey of carbon management practices and developed five items to measure business uncertainty based on a discussion by Milliken (1987) and Ward (1995) the items can measure business uncertainty and complexity.

This article is accurate due to it being published in 2015, so it is recent, and the information is up to date. It provided a reference list allowing any academic to read their sources and check that the information provided is factual and relevant. All the sources of information used to write this article are peer reviewed therefore the information can almost always be trusted.

This article is credible as it is a peer reviewed journal by the name of Business Strategy and the Environment it being peer reviewed allows other organizations and academics to verify the information in the article is relevant to the topic focused on and that all the information has a source and is factual and has evidence to support it. This article has open access to institutions and academics allowing criticism and an open stream of information on the topic making all information provided more credible.

In summary this article is very accurate towards the chosen topic and is credible as it is a peer reviewed article in a journal. It aims to answer questions about climate change in a business environment as it is becoming an ever-growing issue, so it discusses ways to mitigate the risks of climate change and how firms are applying it to their strategic management. The article also covers business uncertainty and the different ways they have devised to measure it and apply it to carbon management practices.

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Tingey-Holyoak, J. Cooper, B. Crase, L. and Pisaniello, J. (2024) ‘Business strategies to counter climate change risks to long-lived production assets’, Journal of Cleaner Production, 459. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2024.142553 (Accessed 21 October 2024)

Article Review:

I chose this article because it aligns with the topic picked by my group as it discusses climate change risks, and the strategies businesses have uses to counter it. This article covers the food sector and their specific issues regarding climate change more closely than other articles. They mention the many factors as to why climate change is affecting the food sector so harshly such as extreme weather events for example long-lasting drought. It also in contrast discusses the opportunities for businesses in the food sector because of climate change such as the growing population in Asia increasing the demand for goods and services. It is stated that the current reporting system on the adaptations created by climate change has so far been inadequate. Crucial climate change decisions are being made by organizations in this sector recently and the decisions mainly focus on ways to radically impact profitability, ratios and trends to serve an ever-growing population

This article is accurate as it was published in 2024 meaning that it is brand new and has had a decade of research to provide accurate information as the main studies of climate change and global warming arose in 2015. The reference list provided has many articles and journals all have which have been peer reviewed and are open for institutions and academics to access giving a steady flow of criticism and knowledge.

This article is credible as it is a peer reviewed article and has been read by many academics to confirm the information and statistics are factual and accurate. The article is free to access allowing any student with a university email address access to the whole journal. The journal it is published to is named Journal of Cleaner Production and has many peer reviewed articles all of which are factual and referenced correctly increasing the credibility substantially.

In summary, this article is related to the topic and has accurate information due to being published in 2024 and providing a reference list with many other peer reviewed articles. It is also credible as the authors have written and published articles previously which are also peer reviewed. The article achieves what it set out to do by analysing strategies used to mitigate the risks of climate change in the food sector specifically and gives examples of the successful use of the strategies.

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