Diverging Business Strategies towards Climate Change. A USA-Europe comparison for four sectors of industry

The research project 'Diverging business strategies towards climate change' has investigated what strategies -and why and how- specific sectors of industry develop to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Objective was to provide information of relevance to the COP 2000 Conference, November 2000 in The Hague. Research was sponsored by the Dutch National Research Programme on Global Air Pollution and Climate Change (NRP).

In an USA-Europe co-operation, researchers have analysed emerging climate strategies in the oil industry, the automobile industry, the chemical industry and the bank & insurance sector. Together, these sectors are the most important players in the climate policy debate. Special attention has been paid to the questions whether strategies of EU based corporations differ systematically from USA based corporations. Results show rather sectorial specific developments. In most sectors, i.e. oil, automobile and banks, European corporations generally tend to have more advanced policies than their USA counterparts, but this does not apply to chemical companies. Corporate strategies appear to be highly determined by a combination of market situation in their home country and of access to alternative technologies. In the automobile industry, USA and Europe show convergent strategies. In the other sectors, convergence is not clearly visible.