ABSTRACT
The 1990s saw both the emergence of a literature on business and the environment, and a growing scientific and political consciousness of the global scale of environmental change (Stern et al., 1992; Welford, 1996; Yearley, 1996). Logically, the two areas of study are closely connected; processes of production and consumption orchestrated by business play an important role in shaping human impacts upon the global environment. Political diagnoses of actions to meet the global environmental challenge also place business centre-stage; not simply as a participant in wider behavioural changes, but leading the design and implementation of technological and managerial innovations to counter environmental damage. The present chapter focuses on atmospheric change, where an international political process has defined targets and timetables for reduction in the production and emission of ozonedepleting and greenhouse gases (Haas et al., 1993; O’Riordan et al., 1998; Parry et al., 1998; Rowlands, 1995; Tangen, 1999; Victor et al., 1998). Some larger businesses have participated directly in this diplomatic process, but many more are drawn into the attempt to meet the environmental targets. This begs a number of questions about the capacity of business to implement change, which have a wider resonance in academic attempts to understand relationships between business and environment.
