Climate pushers or symbolic leaders? The limits to corporate climate leadership by food retailers

ABSTRACT

Corporate climate leadership and its relationship with state regulations are discussed. First, a typology defining corporate climate leadership is introduced and distinguished from the other strategic behaviours corporations may adopt in response to climate change. A conceptual framework to explore the mechanisms enabling corporate climate leadership within a given policy system is then presented. This framework is applied to two big Swiss food retailers, considered as typical of corporate climate leaders, firms that showed an early interest in climate protection, as a result of ecological values, third actors’ lobbying and particular market incentives. Most importantly, the two companies were set in motion by a regulatory framework that featured stringent policy goals associated with flexible instruments and economic sanctions. The importance of these findings for understanding the role of corporate leadership in polycentric climate governance is discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate policy
• corporate climate leadership
• voluntary instruments
• food retailing industry
• Switzerland
• polycentric governance

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Innovations in Climate Governance (INOGOV), the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) in the frame of the project The Governance of Climate change Adaptation, grant number 100017_153525, and the national research programs Healthy nutrition and sustainable food production (NRP 69), grant number 406940_145181.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. IFOAM EU Group. 2016. Organic in Europe: Prospects and development 2016. Brussels. https://shop.fibl.org/chen/mwdownloads/download/link/id/767/

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Innovations in Climate Governance (INOGOV), the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) in the frame of the project The Governance of Climate change Adaptation, grant number 100017_153525, and the national research programs Healthy nutrition and sustainable food production (NRP 69), grant number 406940_145181.