ABSTRACT
Business actors play a pivotal role in global environmental governance. From a theoretical standpoint, the power of business and corporations in global environmental governance can be differentiated on the basis of how this power is exercised. Research has shown that the power of business actors in global governance in general, and in global environmental governance specifically, has dramatically increased over the last decades relative to the power of other players in the political arena. In sum, business actors in general and corporations in particular have become decisive actors in global environmental governance. Their power challenges not only national sovereignty but also international regulatory approaches and democracy in general. More fundamentally, their power poses a major challenge to the urgently needed sustainability transformation.
