Can ‘climate champions’ save the planet? A critical reflection on neoliberal social change

Abstract

Many organisations in both public and private sectors have recognised the challenge posed by climate change and have developed ‘Climate Champion’, ‘Green Team’ or ‘Environmental Coordinator’ schemes. On the basis of interviews with 36 champions in large organisations and analysis of their role as ‘environmental citizens’ in the workplace, it is argued that, overall, the champions are thoroughly embedded in a neoliberal understanding of social change. They conceived of their colleagues (and their employers) as neoliberal agents and accepted that a neoliberal ethic should govern their relations with others. However, when asked about their own motivations for action, champions used a much wider range of discourses. They often appealed to ideas of ‘justice’, ‘responsibility to future generations’ and ‘doing the right thing’. Encouraging climate champions to engage in ‘ordinary moral reasoning’ about climate change with their colleagues might be an important first step to prompting critical reflection on the limits of a neoliberal approach to social change.

Keywords:

• climate champion
• climate change
• discourse
• environmental citizenship
• neoliberalism

Notes

 1. ‘Formal’ (or designated) champions were appointed as ‘champions’ by their organisation. ‘Informal’ champions worked to promote environmental issues, but they did this independently without being appointed. Our study focuses exclusively on designated champions .

 2. ‘A’ refers to the company and ‘m’ indicates the interviewee was the manager responsible for the climate champion programme. We refer to champions by number.

 3. Lewis and Juravle (2010) also note the importance of a ‘business case’ for environmental action.

 4. For further information on Global Action Plan see Hobson (2002).

 5. Hobson (2002) notes that this is an unfortunate outcome of the GAP initiatives.

 6. Lewis and Juravle (2010) also suggest the importance of a ‘business case’ for action.

 7. ‘Neoliberal environmental citizenship’ should not be confused with other forms of ‘liberal environmental citizenship’ (Bell 2005).

 8. Our thanks to an anonymous reviewer for this suggestion.

 9. On economics, see also Massey (2000).

10. ‘Deliberative’ environmental citizenship might be consistent with various forms of environmental citizenship, including both ‘ecological citizenship’ (Dobson 2003) and ‘liberal environmental citizenship’ (Bell 2005). However, it might have a particular affinity with Barry‘s emphasis on ‘resistance’ in his account of ‘sustainability citizenship’ (Barry 2006). Further development of the idea of deliberative environmental citizenship would need to draw on work linking deliberative democracy and the environment to identify the particular characteristics of this form of citizenship and to respond to common criticisms of deliberative theories (Baber and Bartlett 2005, Backstrand et al. 2010). For us, the central idea is minimal: it is simply that the deliberative environmental citizen actively seeks to engage others in serious discussions about the whole range of issues raised by climate change.