Winds of Change:: Corporate Strategy, Climate change and Oil Multinationals

Ans Kolk and David Levy

European Management Journal, 2001, vol. 19, issue 5, 501-509

Abstract: Behind pessimistic expectations regarding the future of an international climate treaty, substantial changes can be observed in company positions. Multinationals in the oil and car industries are increasingly moving toward support for the Kyoto Protocol, and take measures to address climate change. This article analyses developments in the oil industry over the past few years, observing considerable shifts in corporate climate strategies. It compares British Petroleum, Royal Dutch Shell, Texaco and ExxonMobil, of which currently only the latter strongly opposes a climate treaty. BP and Shell have moved decisively toward supporting emission reductions and investing in renewable energy, while Texaco has begun to move in a similar direction. Divergent behaviour can be explained in terms of company-specific factors, particularly corporate histories of profitability and location, market assessments, degrees of centralization and the presence of climate scientists. Ongoing stakeholder pressures, which focus on 'first-mover' BP, are evaluated.

Keywords: Corporate; strategy; Oil; industry; Multinationals; Climate; change; BP; ExxonMobil; Shell; Texaco; International; policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2001
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (55)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0263237301000640
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eurman:v:19:y:2001:i:5:p:501-509

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/115/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... me/115/bibliographic

Access Statistics for this article

European Management Journal is currently edited by Michael Haenlein

More articles in European Management Journal from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().