ABSTRACT
Since the end of the 1990s, formulating a climate strategy has become a vital business practice for many companies. 1 The main incentive to pursue corporate activities in tackling this issue is the fact that scientists across the world are in broad consensus that climate change is a matter of fact and urgent action is needed. Furthermore, in many countries policy-makers are seeking to implement industry-specific climate change policies and a range of corporate stakeholders are making requests to companies to develop strategies and disclose information about their efforts to tackle this issue. 2 For industries that are highly dependent on fossil fuels climate change is of real strategic importance: 3 Fossil fuels are core to the business of the oil and gas and automotive industries for example, and their global presence makes them highly vulnerable to stakeholder pressure. While heavy industries such as steel and cement also depend on fossil fuels, they are less visible to outsiders and receive less scrutiny. For service companies and manufacturing companies producing food, clothing and electronics this issue is often part of broader efforts to advance corporate social responsibility (CSR). However, if for the larger part of business addressing climate change is merely a way of profiling socially responsible behaviour, 4 how seriously can we expect the corporate sector to truly contribute to curbing global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to the extent that is needed?
